If economic integration fosters expectations of institutional and productivity convergence, then international capital flows should be driven by consumption-smoothing anticipation of future income growth patterns as well as by factor-intensity equalization. In the euro area, financial market...

At the end of the first half of the transitional period, this communication privides an overview of the preparations undertaken so fare and those required for the final changeover to the euro at the beginning of 2002. Two events are associated with the end of the transitional period: as from 1...

Though it is generally accepted that the introduction of the euro is a business issue, its impact on information technology (IT) is tremendous. Since the mutual dependency of business and IT is crucial and undeniable, company management must consider both the business and IT aspects of euro...

This edition presents, as a double number, two interrelated reports on preparatory aspects of the introduction of the euro.

Several studies have documented the weak response of regional wages differentials and labour mobility following region-specific ("idiosyncratic") shocks in the average of the EU countries. This has been often taken as evidence of the rigidity of labour markets in European countries, as opposed...

Article 106 (ex 105 a) of the Treaty establishing the European Community maintains the historical tradition separating the issue of banknotes, for which the Central Bank is competent, and the issue of coins, which is the responsibility of the finance ministries. It is therefore for the European...

Coordination arrangements should ensure that fiscal policy is conducted in a consistent manner across the various public entities and sub-sectors of general government. This dimension has gained in relevance as recent fiscal governance reforms in the European Union have put a premium on sound...

In EMU, a country may have difficulty ensuring stability in the face of asymmetric shocks; the response may be unstable, or, even if not, the real exchange rate might overshoot. Fiscal policy may help to stabilise inflation and also to target the real exchange rate. The paper argues that an...

This paper reviews the macroeconomic use of national fiscal policy in EMU and examines the rational and scope for a collective insurance system which redistributes income among countries in response to asymmetric cyclical shocks. The analysis of the record of national fiscal policies before and...

Turkey's performance in the current crisis shows that it has managed to weather the global stormy conditions relatively well and avoid collapsing into a full-fledged currency and financial crisis. On the face of it, one could conclude economic reforms introduced since 2001 have paid off and...