In this paper we describe some of the opportunities and perils for international monetary cooperation associated with EMU. Our approach brings together two strands in the literature; one concerned with institutions, the other focusing on policy consensus. Previous work on the subject has featured...

In this paper we develop a procedure for applying the core implications of the theory of optimum currency areas to cross-country data. We demonstrate that these implications find strong empirical support. The relationship between the characteristics of countries to which OCA theory points and...

European policy makers have repeatedly suggested that fiscal-policy coordination and fiscal federalism will play key roles in Europe's monetary union. This paper warns that this hope is misplaced. Fiscal federalism will not be available to offset recessionary shocks for the foreseeable future....

Conventional wisdom has it that the Mexican crisis of 1994-95 was "the first financial crisis of the 21st century." In this paper I argue that it may be better understood as the last financial crisis of the 19th. The crisis in Mexico exhibits striking similarities to the Baring Crisis of 1890,...

The connection between monetary integration and political integration is probably the most contentious aspect of the Maastricht process. In this paper I suggest that relationship between monetary and political integration is contingent; under only slightly different initial conditions, these two...

The issue of whether Mercosur needs closer macroeconomic policy harmonization, and in particular an exchange-rate stabilization agreement or even a single currency is discussed. Three views are offered on the links between exchange rates and regional integration. The option for monetary union is...

The existing empirical literature on banking crises has not produced agreement on their causes. Using a sample of 75 emerging markets in 1975-1997, we attempt to determine what we know about banking crises by establishing which previous results are robust. Among the robust causes of...

This conference is one sign of increased interest in collective or cooperative exchange rate arrangements for East Asian countries. A more concrete indication is the announcement in November 1995 by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the central banks of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand of...

This paper updates earlier findings concerning the impact of collective-action clauses on borrowing costs. It has been argued that only in recent quarters have investors focused on the presence of these provisions, and that, given the international financial institutions’ newfound resolve...

Eichengreen argues that recent developments in financial theory provide rigorous microeconomic foundations for the fragile, volatile and crisis-prone forms of market behavior identified in Charles Kindleberger’s Manias, Panics and Crashes and invoked in The World in Depression as an...