The paper is a contribution to the special issue “150 years Journal of Economics and Statistics”. The starting point is a series of articles on the nature and the history of the German Zollverein by Gustav Fischer in the early volumes of the Journal. Both the perception of the Zollverein and...

The paper compares the credibility of currency boards and (standard) pegs. Abandoning a currency board requires a time-consuming legislative process and an abolition will thus be previously expected. Therefore, a currency board solves the time inconsistency problem of monetary policy. However,...

The paper compares the credibility of currency boards and (standard) pegs. Abandoning a currency board requires a time-consuming legislative process and an abolition will thus be well-anticipated. Therefore, a currency board solves the time-inconsistency problem of monetary policy. However,...

This paper studies the effects of a further integration of markets that are characterized by intra-industry trade. The analysis is motivated by the observation that product markets of EU countries are more segmented than is usually supposed, which becomes evident e.g. from high differences in...