This book explores the origins, rationale, problems and prospects of the European fiscal policy framework. It provides the reader with a roadmap to EMU's budgetary framework by exploring its theoretical and empirical foundations, uncovering its historical roots and emphasising its supranational...

This book examines the monetary integration of the group of countries which constitute the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), signalling the emergence of a truly European economy. The authors devote their considerable expertise to the analysis of macroeconomic policies within EMU and the...

This book deals with the economic consequences of monetary integration, which has long been dominated by the Optimal Currency Area (OCA) paradigm. In this model, money is perceived as having developed from a private sector cost minimization process to facilitate transactions. Not surprisingly,...

The dramatic evolution of financial markets in the 1980s and 1990s, accompanied by increasing institutional integration between nations (most notably in the EU), have fostered a widespread belief that governments - particularly those of small economies - have essentially lost the power to pursue...

Economic and Monetary Union in Europe brings together contributions from leading specialists which explain and evaluate the most important implications of economic and monetary union. The book examines theoretical aspects of monetary integration, illustrates the historical lessons to be learned...

This ambitious book seeks both to revive and revise the idea of 'functional finance'. Followers of this doctrine believe that government budgets should concentrate solely on their macroeconomic impact on the economy, rather than reflecting a concern for sound finance and budgetary discipline....

This book is an up-to-date, authoritative and comprehensive analysis of the key issues and challenges facing regional currency area projects in the context of financial globalization. The authors focus on several central issues that emerged during the experiences of the 1990s and 2000s: exchange...

Nobel Prize winner James Tobin has made outstanding contributions to modern macroeconomics. In this final collection of his work he examines the economic policies of the United States and its relations with other major economies after 1990. In James Tobin's view, the welfare of populations...

Potential new entrants to the European Union from Central and Eastern European countries face many challenges to achieve financial convergence with the existing EU nations. Using detailed case studies from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland and analysis of cross country...

The authors offer a sustained argument that the single currency as currently implemented does not promise to deliver prolonged growth. They contend that the economic impact of the euro, and its accompanying institutions, is likely to be destabilising and deflationary; that the political impact...