We confront the notion that flexible rates insulate a country from external disturbances with new evidence on spillovers from euro-area shocks to neighboring countries. We find that in response to euro-area shocks, spillovers are not smaller, and currency movements not significantly larger, in...

The notion that flexible exchange rates insulate a country from foreign shocks is well grounded in theory, from the classics (Meade, 1951; Friedman 1953), to the more recent open economy literature (Obstfeld and Rogo, 2000). We confront it with new evidence from Europe. Specifically, we study how...