While the European Monetary Union (EMU) is now a real ity, debate among economists nonetheless continues about the design and desirability of monetary unions.Since an essential element of a monetary union is the delegation of monetary power to a single centralized entity, one of the key issues...

This paper explores the gains to monetary union. We consider a two-country overlapping generations model. Agents work when young and have random tastes over the composition (domestic vs. foreign goods) of old age consumption. In equilibrium, governments require that local currncy be used for...

We study the relationship between social segmentation and income inequality by means of the economic theory of clubs with private provision of the club good. After having characterized the equilibrium partition of society in clubs and investigating its characteristics, we show how the clubs'...

La Bundesbank et la Banque de France ont organisé les 19 et 20 mai derniers à Hambourg leur troisième conférence conjointe. Cette conférence portait sur les défis que la politique macroéconomique doit relever à court et à long terme, dans ses volets monétaire, budgétaire et fiscal.