A common argument against monetary union is that it precludes stabilization of economies through monetary and exchange rate policy. The authors address this point by calculating the relative empirical importance of industry-specific, country-specific, and aggregate disturbances using a...

Utilizing panel data for 14 East European transition economies, we discuss the link between product variety and growth. The empirical work relies upon some direct measures of product variety calculated from 5-digit OECD trade data. On balance, the results suggest that the growth patterns of the...

We calculate welfare gains of trade liberalization in the Central and East European transitioneconomies, following the approach of Romer (1994), who emphasized that proper modeling ofthe impact of trade restrictions on the number of available product varieties is crucial toquantifying the...