The creation of the euro and the European Central Bank is a remarkable and unprecedented event in economic and political history: creating a supranational central bank and leaving eleven countries without national currencies of their own. The experience of the first year confirms that one size...

This paper begins by discussing the inherent conflict between the simultaneous existence of a single currency for the countries of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the independent fiscal policies of those countries. The Stability and Growth Pact was an attempt to reconcile that...

EMU would be an economic liability. A single currency would cause at most small trade and investment gains but would raise average cyclical unemployment and would probably raise inflation, perpetuate structural unemployment, and increase the risk of protectionism. EMU is nevertheless being...