Current monetary policy involves the manipulation of the Central Bank interest rate (the repo rate), with the specific objective of achieving the goal(s) of monetary policy. The latter is normally the inflation rate, although in a number of instances this may include the level of economic...

Macroeconomic Policies of the Economic and Monetary Union: Theoretical Underpinnings and Challenges Philip Arestis and Malcolm Sawyer, The Levy Economics Institute and Leeds University Abstract This paper presents two issues: first, an effort to decipher the type of economic analysis and...

It has almost become the conventional wisdom that there should be rules governing the size of the budget deficits, without regard for the impact of such deficits on the macro economy. This is reflected in the push for a balanced budget in the United States and the 3 percent deficit to GDP ratio...

The paper begins by a brief review of the main ideas associated with Hyman Minsky and their implications for economic policy and the achievement of full employment. There is a focus on the financial instability hypothesis, the role of the central bank as lender of last resort and the...

The NAIRU (non accelerating inflation rate of unemployment) is generally viewed as a supply-side determined short run equilibrium rate of unemployment. Aggregate demand plays no essential part in the determination of the equilibrium rate of unemployment. In those models from which a NAIRU is...

This paper proposes an alternative stability and growth pact among European Union (EU) governments that would underpin the introduction of a single currency and a "single market" within the EU. The alternative pact embraces a number of new aspects of integration within the EU that are based on a...

This paper explores some of the links between macroeconomic policy and industrial strategy. The perspective of the present paper is to emphasis the role of the output and investment activities of enterprises rather than the general focus on the labour market in the determination of economic...

This paper examines the causes of the general decline in the value of the euro by assessing the various explanations proffered in existing literature, then offering a more satisfactory explanation. The argument prevalent in the literatureCthat the decline in value of the euro is due to AU.S....

It has been argued that the eurozone will face considerable economic difficulties. These will take a number of forms, two of which could qualify as "crises." First, the euro was launched at a time when unemployment levels were high (10 percent of the workforce) and disparities in the experience...

The euro was adopted as legal tender, albeit in a virtual form, by 11 countries of the European Union on January 1, 1999, with the intention that notes and coins denominated in euros would be introduced and the national currencies would be phased out during the first six months of that year and...