We show that, with benevolent policymakers and fiscal leadership, monetary unification reduces inflation, taxes and public spending. These disciplining effects of a monetary union, which rise with the number of fiscal players in the union, are likely to raise welfare. Joining an optimally...

This paper studies how the exposure of a country's corporate sector to interest rate and exchange rate changes affects the probability of a currency crisis.To analyze this question, we present a model that defines currency crisis as situations in which the costs of maintaining a fixed exchange...

Discussions of the economic costs and benefits of EMU usually take as their basis the optimum currency area (OCA) approach. This approach starts from the premise that when an external shock hits the economy, it is easier to adjust the exchange rate than domestic prices or wages. Most economists...

This study investigates the effects of relationship lending on firm innovativeness using a panel of Italian manufacturing firms. In order to disentangle the impact of bank ties on the discovery phase from that in the introduction phase of new technologies, the analysis proceeds in two steps,...