What are the prospects that risk sharing in EMU will ever attain the levels in the US? So far as the risk sharing in the US depends on interregional transfers through the budget of the federal government, those prospects are poor. So far as the risk sharing in the US takes place though market...

Diversification opportunities in Euroland appear to have improved significantly since the advent of the euro, thus invalidating the prospects identified in the last years of the convergence-to-EMU period. We identify low frequency movements in the time series of return dispersions suggestive of...

This Paper studies the impact of EMU on portfolio diversification opportunities. We find a significant increase in the correlation between stock returns, whether they are computed on the basis of market or sector indices. This is true for two definitions of the pre-convergence and convergence...

This paper explores the interactions between external trade and regional disparities in the Italian economy since unification. It argues that the advantage of the North was initially based on natural advantage (in particular the endowment of water, intensive in silk production). From 1880...

What explains the world-wide trend of pro-entrepreneurial policies? We study entrepreneurial policy in a lobbying model taking into account the conflict of interest between entrepreneurs and incumbents. It is shown that international market integration leads to more pro-entrepreneurial policies....

We use a simple model in which the expected returns in emerging markets depend on their systematic risk as measured by their beta relative to the world portfolio as well as on the level of integration in that market. The level of integration is a time-varying variable that depends on the market...

This paper presents a computable general equilibrium model of world trade, and applies the model to analyses of world trade and production effects of European integration. The main features of the model are: four world regions, twelve traded goods, one non-tradable aggregate in each region and...

This paper reviews the first evidence on the impact of European Monetary Union on European capital markets, one year after the launch of the single currency. Our assessment of this evidence is very favourable. On almost all counts EMU has either already drastically changed the European financial...

This paper endogenises the extent of intra-sectoral competition in a multi-sectoral model of oligopoly in general equilibrium. Firms choose capacity followed by prices. If the benefits of capacity investment in a given sector are below a threshold level, the sector exhibits Bertrand behaviour,...

This paper examines the historical record of the Austro-Hungarian monetary union, focusing on its bargaining dimension. As a result of the 1867 Compromise, Austria and Hungary shared a common currency, although they were fiscally sovereign and independent entities. By using repeated threats to...