The case of Switzerland appears to be unique with regard to the European Economic and Monetary Integration Process which began in 1957: even though the country has cultivated close ties and growing links with the European Union (EU) over time, it does not desire full membership. If this...

The paper applies fuzzy clustering techniques to the member countries of the European Union in order to arrive at an identification of preferred monetary union groupings. The statistical criteria employed are those suggested, alternatively, by the traditional Optimal Currency Area theory or the...

This paper studies a multi-country currency union of small open economies. Demand-side disturbances hamper monetary union stabilisation unless participating countries’ business cycles are perfectly synchronised. In the face of country-specific supply shocks, a currency union of small open...

This paper investigates empirically the extent to which the ten new EU countries are ready to join the European Monetary Union (EMU). Using France and Germany as a benchmark, we assess the prospects of successful EMU participation based on common trends analysis of the nominal convergence...

In this paper, we focus on the issue of shocks asymmetries in the future Euro - pean Monetary Union. Relying on the technique of codependence developed by Gouriéroux and Peaucelle [1989, 1993], we propose a new method which, unlike the analysis of Bayoumi and Eichengreen [1992], does not...

Financial regulation has shifted from a system as an oligopoly dominated by the G2/G5 to expanded clubs like the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision. Expansive clubs have to agree to terms that are closer to the preferences of soft-regulation members. Yet, once a global agreement on minimum...

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....

In this paper we present an intertemporal model of the spot and forward markets for foreign exchange. We analyze the implications of central bank interventions on the spot market for the risk premium in the currency forward market and discuss the consequences for the allocation of exchange rate...

Under the assumption that the balance of payments must satisfy the expected intertemporal balance, this paper seeks to establish a pre-condition for a crisis of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). Proposing that non-stationarity of the growth rate of assets is evidence of a violation of expected...

In this paper, we investigated the impact of the creation of the European Monetary System (EMS) on the exports of the four largest EU countries (France, Germany, Italy and UK) to each other. Our findings suggest that the EMS boosted bilateral trade in the cases of Germany 's exports to Italy and...