The paper builds a simplified model describing the economy of a currency union with decentralised national fiscal policy, where the main features characterising the policy-making are similar to those in EMU. National governments choose the size of deficit taking into account the two main rules...

We argue that since there are several impediments to international risk sharing, the welfare fains from full international risk sharing, which have been the object of analysis in the previous literature, are not suggestive. Instead, we study the gains from feasible risk sharing and find that...

This paper reviews recent research on central bank independence (CBI). After we have distinguished between independence and conservativeness, the literature on optimal inflation contracts is discussed, followed by research in which the inflationary bias is endogenised. Finally, the various...