In its present set-up, the EMU could be expected to follow its historical predecessor, the Latin Monetary Union, which was founded in 1865 and in effect ended in 1914. Then as now, it was impossible to coerce sovereign states to follow the rules needed to establish a single currency.

The sharp widening of yield spreads among EMU sovereign bonds in the course of the economic crisis and concerns that some EMU member countries would encounter difficulties in rolling their existing debt and funding new budget deficits have revived proposals for a common bond issuance by EMU...

The cost of the financial crisis to the real economy has so far remained underexamined,probably because of the difficulty in making such an assessment. The crisis was precipitatedby an unsustainable bubble that artificially inflated economic fi ures, so what should be used as a benchmark for...

While past discussions on EMU tended to emphasise its role in limiting the impact of the global financial crisis on the euro area countries, the focus has now shifted to the destabilising effects threatening the entire euro zone as a consequence of the dire fiscal situation in some weaker member...

Diverging fiscal policy paths, housing booms and diverging unit labour costs were driving forces of rising intra-European current account imbalances, which were underpinned by low interest rates. Since the outbreak of the crisis, the adjustment of intra-EMU current account imbalances has been...

Japan's industrial and trade policies are often seen as the reason for high Japanese balance of trade surpluses. Does this theory stand up to a close examination of the relationships between balance of trade, trade policy and structural change?