This study investigates the degree of economic integration that the group of selected South East European countries have achieved with the euro area. The evidence of this study suggests that all four selected South East European economies are in sync with the euro area cycle, and respectively...

While it is painfully clear that the ’ever closer’ monetary and financial union in the EU has run into serious trouble there has been very little study of the degree to which the countries have become similar or different in their economic growth dynamics. This paper therefore goes beyond...

The regional business cycles synchronisation between 58 European regions is analysed in this paper. Business cycles are obtained three filters over the period 1981-2008 from the real GDP growth rate. Regional synchronisation is quantified with correlation coefficients between the euro area...

As the 100th anniversary of the 1913 Federal Reserve Act approaches, we assess whether the nation’s experiment with the Federal Reserve has been a success or a failure. Drawing on a wide range of recent empirical research, we find the following: (1) The Fed’s full history (1914 to present)...

Unlike Knut Wicksell, Eli Heckscher did not believe the time had arrived for “managed money” to replace the gold standard after World War I. The war had shown that only a gold standard could bind the central bank to a time-consistent policy with reasonable price stability. Heckscher likened...

Although recent research strongly suggests that L. Frank Baum did not write The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a monetary or political allegory, the Populist-parable interpretation of his book remains a tremendous teaching tool in economics classes. The author offers some background on the rise and...

Can developing countries enhance credibility with international markets by adopting a hard currency peg? In this paper we review the hypothesis that adherence to the gold standard facilitated the access of peripheral countries to European capital markets in the first era of financial...

In this paper, we focus on how European economic integration has affected the synchronization and the magnitude of business cycles among participating countries. We measure, based on bandpass filtered data, the characteristics of European business cycles analyzing to what extent they have become...

This Selected Issues paper analyzes the income dispersion and comovement in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union region. It finds that incomes are diverging, with the Leeward Islands converging to a higher income level than the Windward Islands. The paper examines the macroeconomic impact of...