This paper studies the implications of cross-border financial integration for financial stability when banks' loan portfolios adjust endogenously. Banks can be subject to sectoral and aggregate domestic shocks. After integration they can share these risks in a complete interbank market. When...

One of the main stylised facts that has emerged from the recent literature on global value chains is that bilateral trade imbalances in gross terms can differ substantially from those measured in value added terms. However, the factors underlying the extent and sign of the differences between...

The increasing importance of global supply chains has prompted the use of analytical tools based on trade in value added – instead of traditional measures in gross value. We use this analytical framework to develop indicators that identify hubs and spokes in international supply chains. Using...

Sizable prevailing real economic disparities among countries in a currency union potentially involve costs for those countries for which the aggregate policy stance is not appropriate. This paper contributes to the literature by testing for productivity convergence among euro area countries....

The monetary integration of the acceding countries will proceed in several distinct steps, starting with membership in the European Union (EU), followed by participation in the so-called Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) II and ultimately entry into the euro area. This paper addresses the question...

This paper provides evidence on the role of net fiscal transfers to households and EU structural funds for per-capita output convergence across a large sample of European regions during the period 1995-2005. We find that net fiscal transfers, while achieving regional redistribution, seem to...

The move to monetary union in Europe led to convergence of interest rates among the participating countries. This was associated with notable cross-country differences in the behaviour of key macroeconomic aggregates. Compared to the low interest rate countries, former high interest rate...

We study the business cycle properties of the four largest euro area economies in the wake of the recent recession episodes. The analysis is based on the factors estimated from a multi-country and multi-sector data-rich environment. We measure alikeness of business cycles by studying the...