Over the past three years, as the euro area has struggled with high levels of sovereign debt, it has been gradually developing into a debt union. However, this is not a sustainable arrangement. This article proposes two alternatives to a debt union: a fiscal union and a monetary union with...

1. Opening remarks -- 2. Fiscal policies and sustainability of public finances in the European Union -- 3. Fiscal policy challenges, sustainability of public finances and EU accession : the case of Turkey -- 4. Monetary policy in the Euro area : lessons from five years of the ECB and then...

Political debates over the fiscal framework of the European Monetary Union have focused on two issues, dealing with asymmetric shocks and maintaining a high degree of fiscal discipline. After reviewing the development of the EMU fiscal framework, we argue that transfers dealing with asymmetric...

This article quantifies the welfare differences among a monetary union, flexible exchange rates (economic disintegration) and a monetary plus fiscal transfer union (higher economic integration). The vehicle of analysis is a medium-scale New Keynesian DSGE model consisting of two heterogeneous...