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The recent global financial crisis, although initially manifested itself in the field of mortgages in the USA, spread to the international banking system and the stock markets, led to the introduction (mainly by governments of strong economies) of monetary measures, had serious implications on the "real economy" and finally led both the decision-making of economic policies (particularly of European countries) and the theoretical understanding of the whole phenomenon into an impasse. This specific description of events does not, however, necessarily mean that there is also a similar coherence in the theoretical interpretation of the crisis, despite the fact that such an approach became dominant, even among academics. As a first step, we attempt to analyse the arguments of the prevailing theoretical foundations of globalization which could explain the recent crisis. Our conviction is that modern international economic reality cannot be successfully interpreted with the help of traditional economic theory; whether it is Ricardian analysis, the later neoliberal HOS approach, or the more recent dynamic models of the advantages of international trade. On the contrary, we could find useful assistance in the Keynesian principles. Observing the empirical findings concerning the world economic crisis of 2007, we are in a position to claim that the causes of this systemic crisis are in the area of the "real economy", as it has been shaped during the last three decades, where national economies affect one another in an environment characterized by the process of growing globalization. The two main aspects of the present stage of globalization -that is, on the one hand, the network organization of firms at a global level, and, on the other, the gradual autonomization of the financial sector are not in a position anymore to interpret the hypotheses upon which the normative theory of international trade is based. According to that logic, as a second step, we proceed with an analysis of the features and dimensions of the financial sphere as well as of the macroeconomic imbalances of the globalized "real economy", seeking to establish the relationship between them and the global economic crisis. This approach permits us to assert that despite the excesses or the omissions of economic policies that could be viewed as contributing factors to the eruption of the crisis, the main cause lies in the way the process of globalization is materialized.

The traditional theory of Optimum Currency Areas (OCA) has provided the conceptual explanation of currency unions for nearly half a century and played a dominant role in shaping the idea of the European monetary integration, whereas it further offered a basis for the creation of the eurozone. Nominal convergence, in accordance with the OCA theory, represents the final stage of the process and involves monetary and fiscal variables, while its relationship with real convergence turns out to be complex and insufficiently defined both in contemporary economic theory and empirical research. The emergence of the world economic crisis in 2008 further accentuated the problem of the relation between nominal and real convergence especially following the worsening of the macroeconomic disequilibria of many "old" and "new" member states. This article firstly aims to approach the Optimum Currency Areas theory in its evolution and to underscore its weak points. We shall then consider the criteria and the main suggested methods of estimating real convergence. We shall finally attempt a meta-analysis of the often contradictory results of empirical researches on real convergence, both within the context of the eurozone and the European Union in view of the above mentioned theoretical controversy. Our conclusions lead to skepticism on the evolution of the real convergence process, in particular since the recent global economic crisis erupted.

The present paper develops a general production function framework, augmented with two institutional variables namely bureaucracy and corruption on 28 transition economies over the period 2000-2015. The authors use various econometric specifications and apply both the Fixed Effects, as well as the advanced system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) panel data techniques. Empirical findings suggest that the impact of openness in terms of foreign direct investment and international trade is advantageous to all the economies of the panel. Furthermore, the findings indicate that classical growth determinants, such as labor and physical capital, have the expected positive contribution, while macroeconomic instability has a negative effect on real economic activity. Regarding the impact of the two institutional variables, corruption, and bureaucracy, the authors retrieve more influential results, as their impact appears to be diametrically opposite between the former Soviet Union states and the rest of European transition economics.

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