1Department of Health Care Management, Berlin University of Technology, Strasse des 17 Juni 135, Berlin 10623, Germany; 2 European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, rue de l’Autonomie 4, B-1070 Brussels, Belgium; 3WHO Country Office in Republic of Moldova, World Health Organization, 29 Sfatul Tarii Street, MD2029 Chisinau, Republic of Moldova; 4MTVC (Training, Research and Development...

Questions of metropolitan governance were not on the agenda in Switzerland for decades. Swiss metropolitan areas are highly fragmented and the political entities rather compete than cooperate. Scholars therefore argued that Switzerland followed the idea of the public choice approach in metropolitan governance. However, recent changes indicate a move towards the ideas of the new regionalism appr...

The European Union initiated the project “e Europe: An Information Society For All” which is oriented first of all to the Member States. The candidate countries prepared the project “e Europe+. A cooperative effort is to implement the Information Society in Europe” which aims at the co-ordination of time of joining the Information Society with Member States. Moldova, which now goes through a ve...

This article evaluates the extent to which the establishment of the Andean Free Trade Zone (AFTZ) has led to an improvement of intra-regional trade, as promised by open regionalism, without reducing extra-regional trade. Open regionalism is a dynamic process in which economic agreements serve as intermediate steps towards integration with the world economy. The calculations of ex post income el...

Asian regionalism is in a state of flux. Recent Chinese initiatives such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the new Silk Road, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), and more broadly what some have called “China-led alternative institution-building in Asia,” could redefine the contours of Asian regionalism. China is not the only country t...

For the past few years, regionalism has been progressing in East Asia with the likes of China, Japan, and Korea (CJK) as the most prominent actors. Unfortunately, with the absence of trade arrangement amongst the CJK, the present regional trade scheme is not sufficient to reach sustainability. This paper uncovers the inefficient scheme through Engle-Granger Cointegration and Error Correction Me...

This paper deals with two examples of macro-regions in the EU: the Benelux and the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS). Building on the distinction between “old” and “new” regionalism, it discusses some characteristics of regions in general, and of sub-integration schemes within the EU in particular. These characteristics are applied to the two regions at hand. From this application it foll...

Asian economic regionalism has emerged from a bottom-up process, driven by market forces in the absence of a grand plan for regional integration. While the financial crisis of 1997–98 triggered new regional cooperation initiatives, more recently several Asian political leaders have formulated proposals for the creation of a regional economic community, suggesting the possible start of a top-dow...