We analyze the similarities and the differences in the fragility of the European Monetary System (EMS) and the Eurozone. We test the hypothesis that in the EMS the fragility arose from the absence of a credible lender of last resort in the foreign exchange markets while in the Eurozone it was...

The combination of discretionary montetary policy, labor-market distortions and nominal wage rigidity yields an inflation bias as monetary policy tries to exploit nominal wage contracts to address labor-market distortions. Although an inflation target eliminates this inflation bias, it creates a...