The launching of the EURO not only affects the members of EURO-Land, but it also affects the potential new member countries such as Central and Eastern European countries as well as some countries in Europe, Africa and French territories such as Monaco, San Marino, Vatican, Andorra, Mayotte,...

The aim of the paper is to analyse the factors behind the rapid trade integration of the Central and Eastern European countries with the euro area in the past ten years and to gauge the potential for further integration. We use as benchmark an enhanced gravity model estimated with a large sample...

Overall, the paper underlines the difficulties in spelling out the transmission and the final effects of external shocks on the euro area, and highlights the complexity of the various direct and indirect mechanisms. We describe the main channels by which potential spillovers from external...

World trade contracted sharply in late 2008 and early 2009 following the deepening of the financial crisis in September 2008. This paper discusses the main mechanisms behind the global downturn in trade and its impact on euro area exports and competitiveness. It finds that the euro area was hit...

The fiscal governance of the EMU is in dire need of reform. Its current arrangements suff er from several shortcomings, most notably, the limitations they impose on national fiscal policies, steering them towards too restrictive or pro-cyclical stances; the absence of an unconditional lender of...

This paper investigates determinants of convergence in GDP per capita in the euro area and the EU between 1995 and 2021. It finds that the COVID-19 crisis temporarily slowed convergence but the estimated negative impact is significantly smaller than during the global financial crisis. Diverging...

While the global financial crisis had a strong impact on economic activity in Germany, the impact of the euro area crisis on economic activity in Germany has so far been relatively mild. Trade flows by region reveal that German firms have recently redirected their exports towards the remaining...

The European Union (EU) has traditionally been an important economic partner for Asia. In addition to absorbing a significant share of the region's exports, the EU has been a major source of foreign direct investment and other capital flows into the region. In light of such close economic...