The issue of whether constraints should be placed on fiscal policies when moving to European monetary union is examined in the context of the use of fiscal policy for macroeconomic stabilization purposes. Examples of shocks hitting French and German economies are considered: an appreciation of...

Standard models of policy credibility, defined as the expectation that an announced policy will be carried out, emphasize the preferences of the policymaker, and the role of tough policies in signalling toughness and raising credibility. Whether a policy is carried out, however, will also...

Evaluations of European monetary integration using model simulations have given conflicting results, and the paper attempts to elucidate the reasons for the differences. Several features stand out: how to model realignments; how monetary policy is set for individual countries or for Europe; and...

This paper investigates the issue of monetary interdependence among members of the European Monetary System over the period 1979–91 and the leadership role attributed to the German central bank in the process of monetary integration, and looks for possible changes in central banks’...

This paper discusses the effect of cross-border deposits (CBDs) for the stability of the relation between monetary aggregates and nominal GDP in the five largest EC countries. The analysis is developed in terms of “information content” of alternative money definitions (including or excluding...

Two issues are discussed. The first is which countries might benefit from entry into EMU before the millennium. Germany and her immediate neighbors appear the most likely to gain; however, our knowledge is too uncertain to say whether all, some, or no countries would reap net economic benefits....

An important question in the process of European integration concerns the best institutional level for stabilization policies. The theory of fiscal federalism gives criteria for evaluating if fiscal stabilization policies should take place on a centralized or on a decentralized level. This paper...

This paper examines the credibility of the exchange rate policy pursued by the Belgian monetary authorities of pegging the Belgian franc to a narrow fluctuation band around the deutsche mark, in the context of the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System. Simple interest rate...

Under free capital mobility, a high-inflation country pursuing a nonaccommodating exchange rate policy will have higher real interest rates than its lower-inflation trading partners as long as that policy is not credible. If the policy gains credibility prior to inflation convergence, the sign...

Stage 2 of monetary union in the Europe is to involve greater monetary cooperation; the paper examines the case for using the M3 money supply aggregated across “core ERM” countries- -those with low inflation and absence of realignments- -as a vehicle for that cooperation. First, the...