If the third stage of monetary union in Europe begins on 1 January 1999, not all EU countries will participate: two, with opt-out clauses, may choose to stay out; others will have a derogation because they do not fulfil the required conditions. The Maastricht Treaty, while silent on the regime...

Avocates of formal fiscal restraints on the member states of the European Monetary Union often argue that US experience proves that a monetary union needs such constraints to guarantee the stability of the common currency. We show, first, that the origin of formal fiscal restraints on US state...

We present new data documenting European capital issues in major financial centers from 1919 to 1932. Push factors (conditions in international capital markets) perform better than pull factors (conditions in the borrowing countries) in explaining the surge and reversal in capital flows. In...