Informal barriers and agricultural trade: does monetary integration matter?
Résumé
EU enlargement and the recent sovereign-debt crisis of Euro zone countries have revived the debate around the (European Monetary Union) EMU. In this article we ask how informal barriers to agricultural and food trade have changed since the introduction of the common European currency, and whether this evolution can be attributed to monetary integration. We focus on the foreign trade of the 11 EMU founder countries over a nine-year period covering the creation of the EMU and find a diminishing marginal trade impact of both information and institutional barriers. We find a lower level of trade barriers, but cannot attribute this outcome to the introduction to the Euro.