Economic union

International trade
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  • description

    customs union
    Other forms of economic integration include common markets, economic unions, and federations. Common markets allow free passage of labour, capital, and other productive resources by reducing or eliminating internal tariffs on goods and by creating a common set of external tariffs. Economic unions closely coordinate the national economic policies of their member countries. Federations (such as...
  • economic integration

    international trade: Forms of integration
    economic integration: Economic community or union
    In an economic community or union, the logic of common external tariffs, regulatory approximation, and harmonization of macroeconomic policy is taken to its full conclusion through the construction of an overarching governance framework that imposes a common economic policy system on all countries in the region. In effect, the member states surrender a significant degree of economic sovereignty...
  • economic regionalism

    economic regionalism
    ...A customs union creates a greater degree of integration through a common tariff on nonmembers, and a common market adds to these arrangements by allowing the free movement of capital and labour. An economic and currency union, which requires a high degree of political consensus between member states, aims at full economic integration through a common economic policy, a common currency, and the...
  • taxation

    tax law: Double taxation
    ...countries are involved in economic integration with each other. When two or more countries form a customs union (free-trade zone), each member state keeps its own system of taxation. The aims of an economic union are more ambitious, entailing far-reaching limitations on the sovereignty of the member states; when countries decide to form an economically integrated area, as have the member...
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