on 1 May 2004 into the euro area. Most NMS have undergone a rapid and deep transformation in all areas with considerable … the euro area in the process of labour market and institutional reform (their labour market structures are more flexible … than those of the euro area countries). There is also some evidence that a few NMS have a significant degree of business …

The start of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has spurred a new interest in the debate on the effects of … attempts to gauge any effect with a few years of EMU data. This paper takes instead a more general perspective - it …

’s prosperity. The paper focuses on political events inItaly over the past 35 years and asks whether the adoption of the euro in …’s financial marketsthroughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The introduction of the euro appears to haveindeed played a major role …

Will EMU accelerate or retard structural reform in labour and product markets? The theoretical literature is ambiguous …. New descriptive evidence provided in this paper suggests that euro-area countries have made relatively good progress in … structural reform. However, it is much less clear whether progress can be ascribed to EMU membership. To explore further the …

predecessor currencies, net of intra-euro area assets/ liabilities, before stage 3 of EMU. A number of key factors determining the … a special emphasis on the first year of the euro. A contribution is made as to how to measure these roles, both from the … measures are presented, including euro aggregates calculated up to five years back in time. The data allow for the …

Fiscal rules are instrumental for restraining deficit and spending biases in euro area Member States that could … threaten the smooth functioning of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Ideally, fiscal rules should combine characteristics such …-based framework for fiscal polices in EMU. However, the implementation of the Pact was less than fully satisfactory. One year ago, the …

In this paper we address the question on whether EMU has amplified or dampened intra euro area divergencies, by looking … at a time-varying VAR model of Italy’s relative performance compared with the rest of the euro area, spanning from 1976 … to 2009. Our main result is that EMU does not appear to have materially changed the transmission mechanism of …

, the bond market; thereby, enhancing regional financial integration in the euro area. Beside the effect of the EMU, the …, we show that the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) eased the access to the equity market and, to a larger extent …