This paper brings together several strands of the literature on the endogenous effects of monetary integration: i.e., whether sharing a single currency may set in motion forces bringing countries closer together. The start of EMU has spurred a new interest in this debate. Four areas are...

We propose a new and time-varying optimum currency area (OCA) index for the euro area in assessing the evolution of the OCA properties of the monetary union from an international business cycle perspective. It is derived from the relative importance of symmetric vs. asymmetric shocks that result...

Which ways and means are available for the macroeconomic and fiscal coordination and/or integration within the EMU-framework? Which are the pros and cons of these scenarios? This paper combines economic theory, empirical analysis and insights regarding EMU’s institutional history in order to...

The move to monetary union in Europe led to convergence of interest rates among the participating countries. This was associated with notable cross-country differences in the behaviour of key macroeconomic aggregates. Compared to the low interest rate countries, former high interest rate...

To study the effect of the euro on international goods trade one typically estimates a panel model for the level of trade. Trade levels increase over time, and we show that this is not fully explained by the included regressors. Because the euro is only present at the end of the sample, this may...

A major economic reason for the introduction of the euro was its supposedly positive effect on intra-EMU trade. Existing studies examine this suspicion indirectly using non-EMU data and report ambiguous results. We estimate the euro-effect directly from data that include EMU observations. Using...

This paper quantifies the economic influence that shocks to EMU cohesion, which in turn reflect the incomplete nature of the monetary union, have on the rest of the world. Disentangling euro area stress shocks and global risk aversion shocks based on a combination of sign, magnitude and...

Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has transformed Europe and has created an integrated pan-European economy. Much research has focused on understanding this integration process and what benefits and costs it entails. This paper identifies a political economy channel of EMU as the monetary union...

We analyze the political economy of monetary unification among countries with different quality of institutions. Countries with stronger institutions have lower public spending and better investment incentives, even under a stronger currency. Governments under weaker institutions spend more so...

The paper presents a model-based assessment of fiscal multipliers operating in the euro area during the period 2011-2014. The assessment is conditional on two distinct reactions of the sovereign risk premium (either responding endogenously to fiscal shocks or being an exogenous process) and two...