In this paper we study how the introduction of the euro has affected corporate financing in Europe. We use firm …-level data from eleven euro area countries as well as from a control group of five other European countries spanning the years … 1991–2006. We show that firms from euro area countries that previously had weak currencies have increased both their equity …

financial and price stability that followed the economic crisis facilitated the adjustment to the euro area’s single currency …

Evidence suggests that after a period of convergence in the early and mid-1990s, the euro area economies may have … monitoring intra-euro area developments, we present a "convergence barometer" to monitor divergences, and a Taylor rule based … conclusion is that policymakers at the euro area level should be concerned about divergences, since automatic stabilisers alone …