In order to study the costs/benefits of a monetary union between Germany and France, we attempt to go beyond a mere focus on asymmetries and examine what each country would have lost or gained had there been a common monetary policy. We try to identify the macroeconomic effects of such a change...

What are the prospects that risk sharing in EMU will ever attain the levels in the US? So far as the risk sharing in the US depends on interregional transfers through the budget of the federal government, those prospects are poor. So far as the risk sharing in the US takes place though market...

This paper employs worldwide data on output and bilateral trade in order to identify optimum currency areas (OCA’s) on a global basis. By retaining only two of the many criteria that have been mentioned in the literature on OCA’s, it has been possible to use computer programming to do the...

This paper seeks to integrate more closely the theory of optimum currency areas with the theory of international trade. The currency area is considered as a continuous variable ranging from zero to one: zero if there is no enlargement, and some positive value otherwise, corresponding exactly to...

In order to assess the costs of a European Monetary Union, we use a structural VAR approach based on the long-run identifying scheme pioneered by Blanchard and Quah and extended by others. We then apply the approach to as many EU members as data limitations permit: namely, Germany, Spain,...

In contrast to conventional analyses of monetary union between two particular countries or sets of countries, this paper treats the possible expansion of a given currency area as a continuous variable ranging from zero to one; zero if there is no expansion and one if all sources of imports and...

Greater trade integration within Middle East and North Africa region is expected to happen through the completion of the Pan-Arab Free Trade Agreement. However; recent studies suggest that when resource rich and resource poor countries give preferences to each other; as in PAFTA; the resource...

The significance of a common language in foreign trade hinges on translation as well as the ability to communicate directly. In fact, without admitting the facility of translation from one or two selected languages, it is impossible to explain adequately the impact of a common language on...

In this paper we test the well-known hypothesis of Obstfeld and Rogoff (2000) that trade costs are the key to explaining the so-called Feldstein-Horioka puzzle. Using a gravity framework in an intertemporal context, we provide strong support for the hypothesis and we reconcile our results with...

Comme la plupart des pays du monde, la France propose diverses aides publiques aux entreprises souhaitant exporter. Deux rapports publics, publiés coup sur coup en 2013, dressent le bilan de ce dispositif. Ils soulignent notamment sa complexité et le fait qu’il est parfois mal adapté aux...