Is a European Hard Core Credible? A Statistical Analysis
通过分析拟议的欧盟硬核国家的经济结构，评估其相对权重和同质性，帮助判断该提议的可信度。
The paper analyzes the proposal to create a hard core of European Union (EU) countries committed to deeper and faster integration by studying the economic structure of the proposed grouping. It is divided into two parts. The first examines the relative weight and structural characteristics of the five potential candidates for early membership of the hard core in comparison with the whole EU, the United States and Japan. The second uses principal component and cluster analyses in order to investigate whether these five countries represent a homogenous grouping vis-à-vis the other EU members.