This paper examines the degree of trade integration and business cycle synchronisation between eight Balkan countries and the Euro area over the period 2000:1-2011:4. The main findings are that Slovenia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia exhibit a high level of openness relative to...

The paper examines the effects of asymmetries in fiscal policy conduct upon the correlation of business cycles in the European Union. In particular the paper estimates the effects of fiscal indiscipline and dissimilarity on business cycle correlation in the period 1996-2012 using a panel of 27...

The policy response to the current European crisis has largely focused on its financial symptoms rather than on its deep economic and political causes. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate about the current architecture of the European Economic and Monetary Union. The crisis has...

A few years after the establishment of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), large asymmetries emerged in the trade balances and the current accounts of the member-states. A divide seems to separate two groups in the euro area, one with the northern countries achieving external...

As the euro is on its second decade, the European sovereign debt crisis and the ever more evident disparities in competitiveness among member states are prompting many to question whether monetary union is bringing more benefits than costs. The optimum currency area (OCA) theory provides a...

This paper examines the degree of business cycles synchronization between Romania and the Euro area, by using Germany as a benchmark for the area economic cycle. The period of the study is 2000 - 2011, with a special emphasis on the recent economic and financial crisis. Using the...

Euroization is defined as the adoption of the Euro currency by the authorities from a country outside the Euro area, as a legal currency and as an official currency, and this means that the country chooses to give up its national currency and that the national bank gives up using the monetary...