The transmission process from policy-controlled interest rates to bank lending rates deserves reconsideration owing to the implementation of the European Monetary Union (EMU) in 1999. Additional attention to the subject in Austria is due to several large banks which, in 2002, have been charged...

A central hypothesis and concern of some skeptics of European monetary union is that monetary policy coordination to secure a peg to the Gennan mark (DM) will tie real economic performance, especially the unemployment rate, to that in Germany. Evidence on this hypothesis can be found in Austria,...