The Effect of European Union Membership on Welfare

We study the impact of EU membership on the per capita income, longevity and welfare of the member states. We utilize the concept of full income developed by Becker, Philipson and Soares (2005) which takes into consideration not only in the income level but also increase in the expected lifetime. Our results indicate that there is convergence among EU countries in per capita income, expected lifetime and welfare. Convergence speed is the highest in the per capita income whereas the slowest in the welfare. Moreover our estimations indicate that EU membership positively affects income, longevity, and welfare growth rates.