Benchmarking institutional variety in the eurozone: An empirical investigation

Sara Casagrande and Bruno Dallago

Economic Systems, 2021, vol. 45, issue 1

Abstract: The European debt crisis has shown that the future of the European Union (EU) depends on the willingness of each member country to implement responsible policies, avoid moral hazard and uncooperative attitudes, and ensure stability and soundness. However, the European institutional variety means that each member country reacts differently to shocks and policies, follows a different path of recovery, and adapts to common institutions, including the common currency, in different ways. Helping countries to converge toward a situation that guarantees well-being, stability, and development at the national and community level is the goal of the European benchmark. This benchmark is a framework inspired by European treaties that, through the distance-to-frontier score methodology, aims to measure member countries’ performance and identify inefficiencies and negative externalities within the economic, social, and political institutions of each member country. The paper presents an empirical investigation of the European benchmark. Based on the results obtained, all countries can improve their performance, and none of them can be considered a model for the others. However, the Mediterranean and post-communist countries have more challenges to face and therefore need to make greater efforts.

Keywords: Distance to frontier; Economic development; European benchmark; European economic integration; Eurozone; Institutional variety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C43 F15 O11 O12 O17 O52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecosys:v:45:y:2021:i:1:s0939362520301564

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecosys.2020.100838

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