European Integration and Switzerland: A Synthetic Control Analysis of Switzerland’s Trade Potential if Switzerland Had Joined the European Union
(2023) NEKP01 20231Department of Economics
- Abstract
- The objective of this paper is to investigate how Switzerland’s trade outcomes would have evolved had it decided to join the EU. Using the 1995 EU enlargement for identification, the synthetic control method is applied to construct a counterfactual scenario in which Switzerland joined the EU in 1995 together with Sweden, Finland, and Austria. Comparing the actual and the synthetic bilateral trade flows between Switzerland and seven selected EU member countries leads to the conclusion that annual bilateral trade between Switzerland and the EU member states in the period 1995 to 2008 would have been on average around 1.1 percentage points higher if Switzerland joined the EU in 1995. This effect is shown to evolve over time, with some... (More)
- The objective of this paper is to investigate how Switzerland’s trade outcomes would have evolved had it decided to join the EU. Using the 1995 EU enlargement for identification, the synthetic control method is applied to construct a counterfactual scenario in which Switzerland joined the EU in 1995 together with Sweden, Finland, and Austria. Comparing the actual and the synthetic bilateral trade flows between Switzerland and seven selected EU member countries leads to the conclusion that annual bilateral trade between Switzerland and the EU member states in the period 1995 to 2008 would have been on average around 1.1 percentage points higher if Switzerland joined the EU in 1995. This effect is shown to evolve over time, with some evidence of anticipation effects prior to 1995. The results are robust to a variety of model specifications and standard falsification tests. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9130815
- author
- Neubauer, Linda Jasmin LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- NEKP01 20231
- year
- 2023
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Switzerland, Synthetic Control, European Integration, Trade
- language
- English
- id
- 9130815
- date added to LUP
- 2023-09-04 09:08:41
- date last changed
- 2023-09-04 09:08:41
@misc{9130815, abstract = {{The objective of this paper is to investigate how Switzerland’s trade outcomes would have evolved had it decided to join the EU. Using the 1995 EU enlargement for identification, the synthetic control method is applied to construct a counterfactual scenario in which Switzerland joined the EU in 1995 together with Sweden, Finland, and Austria. Comparing the actual and the synthetic bilateral trade flows between Switzerland and seven selected EU member countries leads to the conclusion that annual bilateral trade between Switzerland and the EU member states in the period 1995 to 2008 would have been on average around 1.1 percentage points higher if Switzerland joined the EU in 1995. This effect is shown to evolve over time, with some evidence of anticipation effects prior to 1995. The results are robust to a variety of model specifications and standard falsification tests.}}, author = {{Neubauer, Linda Jasmin}}, language = {{eng}}, note = {{Student Paper}}, title = {{European Integration and Switzerland: A Synthetic Control Analysis of Switzerland’s Trade Potential if Switzerland Had Joined the European Union}}, year = {{2023}}, }