One of the most usual claims in the debate on economic Integration is that trade liberalization and a fortiori free trade agreements are at the greater advantage of consumers of all countries. In this paper we show that this statement should be temperated if the countries differ considerably with respect to per capita income. If this is the case it can happen that only the consumers of the richest countries gain from the creation of a common market; while, in the poorest countries, the firms gain but the consumers are worse off. The analysis confirms some worries about the short run effects and the distributive problems induced by the economic integration of heterogeneous areas.

Nous analysons, à l’aide d’un modèle théorique à deux pays, si la reprise précoce de l’économie américaine implique une forte hausse des taux d’intérêt en Europe, qui mettrait en péril la reprise européenne. Nous examinons les effets des politiques monétaires, du degré de mobilité internationale du capital, de l’intensité des effets de richesse, et enfin de l’accumulation de dette extérieure aux États-Unis.

L’article analyse la coopération monétaire en Europe comme une coalition (au sens de la théorie des jeux) au sein de l’économie mondiale. Le modèle de Canzoneri et Henderson sert de point de départ; il est enrichi, notamment par la prise en compte d’une fonction de création de la monnaie internationale, pour répondre à trois questions: La coordination des politiques monétaires européennes contribuera-t-elle à améliorer l’équilibre mondial, spécialement du point de vue de l’emploi? Quelles implications associer au refus d’accorder à l’objectif d’emploi une place explicite dans la formulation de la politique monétaire européenne conformément au traité de Maastricht? Quelles implications associer à la promotion de l’euro comme une monnaie internationale concurrente du dollar?

This paper analyses unilateral trade liberalisation in a Cournot duopoly model where the domestic and the foreign firm have different marginal costs. There are three results in the paper. Firstly, with linear demand, it is shown that the domestic country will lose as a result of unilateral free trade unless the foreign firm has a significant cost advantage. Secondly, it is shown that a sufficient condition for there to be gains from unilateral free trade is that the domestic firm is so uncompetitive that it ceases production under free trade. This result is generalised to the case of a Cournot oligopoly with non-linear demand. Thirdly, it is shown that there will always be gains from unilateral free trade with constant elasticity demand functions whatever the elasticity of demand or the relative costs of the domestic and foreign firms.

Answers of sample survey respondents to questions like the following one: “In the circumstances of your household, what income would you regard as the minimum (or good/bad/sufficient, etc.) for your household?” can be used to estimate equivalence scales. It is sometimes claimed that this is a simple and cheap method to obtain “true” equivalence scales. Typically, these scales are much flatter than those derived from consumption behaviour data, or those incorporated in official poverty lines. A number of possible reasons have been advanced for this result. Yet, using subjective data does not necessarily result in a flat equivalence scale. Equivalence scales can also be estimated from answers to direct survey questions on how satisfied the respondent is with his or her household income, and these scales are often quite steep. In this paper, an application of both methods is reported. A number of possible reasons for the discrepancy are explored. In particular, the effects of a wide range of exogenous variables are examined. Data are from the 1985 and 1988 waves of the Belgian Socio-Economic Panel, a household income survey. The conclusion is that the discrepancy between the equivalence scales persists, even when controlling for a large number of possibly intervening factors.