The adoption of the euro in 1999 by 11 member states of the European Union created a single currency area second in economic size only to the United States. The euro zone's monetary policy is now set by the European Central Bank (ECB) and its Governing Council rather than by individual national...

This paper studies ECB and Bundesbank communication on monetary policy during the first years of the European Economic and Monetary Union. We study whether statements by different (groups of) central bankers have been contradictory and whether differences have diminished over time. We find that...

Soon, euro area membership could more than double, with the vast majority of accession countries being quite different in economic terms compared with current members. Under the current decision-making system, this can lead to high decisionmaking costs and there is a risk that monetary policy...