Constitutional political economy in the European Union

This article surveys recent research in constitutional political economy in Europe. Although not all of the works discussed necessarily focus only on European constitutional issues or are written by Europeans, European constitutional issues figure importantly in each area surveyed. The article examines the literatures linking constitutional institutions to economic growth, government size, government deficits and corruption, bicameralism, direct democracy and federalism. Three exclusively European topics also are covered: constitutional issues in the transition countries, the structure of the European Union and the draft constitution for the European Union. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005