A theory of economic unions
构建理论模型分析经济联盟的规模和范围对贸易、收入分配和福利的影响，解释政治支持如何随联盟广度与深度变化，并揭示成员国经济差异如何引发分歧。
After decades of successful growth, economic unions have recently become the focus of heightened political controversy. To understand why, we develop a theoretical model of the effects on trade, income distribution and welfare of economic unions that differ in size and scope. Our model shows that political support for international unions can grow with their breadth and depth provided member countries are sufficiently similar. However, differences in economic size and factor endowments can trigger disagreement over the value of unions. Our model is consistent with some salient features of the process of European integration and statistical evidence from survey data.