This paper analyses several procedures for fixing conversion rates at the start of EMU. One consists of announcing a fixed conversion rate; a second (proposed by Lalmfalussy) would announce that the conversion rate will be an average of past market exchange rates; and a third involves announcing...

This paper analyses the constraints on the choice of the conversion rates resulting from the fact that the external value of the Ecu cannot be changed at the start of the third stage of EMU and that one Ecu must be converted into one Euro. These constraints force the authorities to accept the...

The decline of the euro against the dollar during 1999-2000 was mostly unrelated to observable news about the underlying fundamentals. This corroborates a general finding from the empirical literature testing the traditional exchange rate models, i.e. that exchange rate movements are...

In this paper we study the theory of monetary policy when the monetary authority faces asymmetries in the countries constituting the monetary union. We identify two asymmetries (shocks and transmission) in the context of a two country model. A general finding is that as the degree of asymmetries...

In this Paper we analyse how monetary policies will be affected in a cashless society. Our main conclusions are that the central bank will lose its traditional instruments of monetary policy. Open market operations and advances to banks will become ineffective as instruments to control the...

In this paper it is shown that relatively simple models are capable of generating exchange rate movements that, at least in the short run, are largely disconnected from their fundamental values. The essential ingredient of such models is the hypothesis that economic agents use different...

In this paper we analyze the behavior of the risk premia in exchange markets with very different exchange rate regimes: free floating (dollar markets), the low credibility EMS regime (e.g., Lira/DM and FF/DM) and the high credibility EMS regime (guilder/DM). We find that in the first and the...

According to the Maastricht Treaty, EMS countries will be able to join EMU if their inflation rates are not more than 1.5% higher than the average of the three lowest inflation rates in the EMS. In this paper I analyse the likelihood of inflation rates converging to the levels set out in the...

This paper undertakes an empirical analysis of the existence of psychological barriers in the dollar/DM and the dollar/yen exchange markets. Psychological barriers occur when agents attach some special importance to the last trailing digits of the price of an asset or a currency. Our empirical...

This paper contributes to the literature on the differences in the transmission processes within Euroland. We start from the proposition that there are 'deep' differences in the nature of social conflicts and in the way countries deal with these conflicts. We empirically test this effect for the...