It is appropriate to conlude on a modest note. Economists really know little about the costs and benefits of monetary unification. We have trouble modelling the increase in economic efficiency associated with a single currency, and we disagree about value of an independent monetary policy.

On the basis of currency available information it seems reasonable to assume that European Monetary Union (EMU) will become a reality in the early years of the next century and that at least two of the EU's larger economies, Germany and France, will be participants. Unfortunately the same...