This paper examines the sensibility of a proposed monetary union in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The study hypothesizes that the majority of the economies in the SADC region are candidates for a monetary union. We test this hypothesis against one of the prime optimal...

This study inspects if there is greater convergence with Germany amongst the Eurozone founding members and if their relations with the hegemonic economy have been more symmetrical after "euroization". The dimensions explored are those inspired by the optimum currency areas (OCA) framework. To...

Objective: The objective of the article is to determine which exchange rate regime provides higher bilateral trade: fixed rate or currency union. Research Design & Methods: An index was designed based on variables commonly recognised as those that might affect the value of bilateral trade and...

The former EU president Jean-Claude Junker has proposed that all countries of the European Union should also adopt the euro as their currency and recent research has shown that countries currently pursuing this goal indeed fulfill the classical Optimal Currency Area (OCA) criterion of positively...

The first objective of this paper is to present theoretical approaches to the impact of trade growth (induced by monetary integration) on business cycle synchronization which is an important factor of a country's readiness for a currency union accession. The main conclusion from the first part...

Concerns about the monetary integration issue have lasted for over five decades, outlining several criteria which embody the theory of optimum currency areas. Although the European monetary integration pattern is not based on this theory, it often serves as a reference in assessing the...