This paper aims to assess whether the EU is an optimum currency area (OCA)by examining synchronization of business cycles and long-run outþut linkages in the EU countries. We argue that a necessary condition for the desirability of EMU membership for national economies is that the degree of...

This paper examines the circumstances under which it is beneficial for small countries in a currency union to peg their currency to a large one (euro zone for example). For these purposes, we provide a three-country theoretical model extending the two-country model by Ricci (2008). The...

This paper examines the macroeconomic costs and benefits of dollarization. Economic theory suggests that the main benefit is enhanced price stability, while the main cost is higher business-cycle volatility if the dollarizing country’s output is not sufficiently correlated with that of the...

The eurozone is the crown jewel in the process of European integration. This monetary zone includes the most advanced integration grouping of countries in the European Union. The eurozone has been expanding the number of its participants, a sign of success in any economic or political union....

Using data on UK manufacturing firms, we examine the effects of exchange rate uncertainty on firm decisions on export market entry and export intensity. The use of micro data and new measures of exchange rate uncertainty enable us to test for hysteresis effects in a new way and to test the...

The East Asian currency crisis of 1997-98 has led to considerable interest on the interlinkages between foreign exchange markets in the Asian region. Implicit in the literature is the assumption that the currency crisis can be linked to close integration of the goods and capital markets of the...

What lessons can be drawn from the European experience with regional integration that started in the 1950s, for regional integration in Latin America, which is still in its early stages? We present here a new indicator of institutional integration and study how it developed vis-à-vis diverse...

The presence of a Currency Board (CB) monetary system in Bulgaria is a key factor in assessing monetary policy transmission. Using a generalized impulse response analysis, we propose evidence based on the estimation of VAR models supporting the endogeneity of main Bulgarian monetary aggregates,...

A lack of economic convergence among euro member countries seems to be feeding euro-skepticism. Using a Structural Vector Auto Regression model combined with a time varying correlation analysis, we attempt to test the endogeneity theory for the three core euro members, i.e., France, Germany, and...

Even among academics, it is less known that Europe already witnessed a monetary unification project in the second part of the 19th century. The unification endeavours culminated in the creation of the Latin Monetary Union in 1865, which eventually failed. This paper compares the historical event...