Reduced exchange rate volatility and higher and less heterogeneous quality of institutional rules and macroeconomic policies are two of the main (anticipated and concurring) effects expected from a currency union. In this paper we measure the magnitude of these two effects on the Euro area...

The Paper draws its motivation from the observation that, three years into the single currency, EMU financial markets are making only slow progress towards integration and from the belief that economic history can offer useful insights as to the causes of the phenomenon. In this vein, we...