This paper addresses two questions: (1) Is a twelve-country monetary union in Europe feasible? (2) Can monetary union be achieved in stages, i.e. with an initial group of countries going first, and later admitting the others? After examining several politico-economic arguments concerning...

Important questions concerning the structure and operation of a European Central Bank remain unanswered. Although there exists no precedent for the process of institution-building in which the European Community is currently engaged, the founding and early operations of the Federal Reserve...

How much can regional monitoring of financial markets and coordination of financial sector policies contribute to preventing and mitigating financial crises? This paper reviews and compares the experiences of Europe and Asia, which have taken different routes and have achieved different levels...

L'article traite de l'adhesion du Royaume-Uni a l'UEM. L'analyse de la Zone de monnaie optimale (ZMO) ne fournit que de faibles arguments en faveur de l'adhesion, car le Royaume-Uni est situe dans la peripherie et non dans le noyau de l'UEM. Cependant, les couts possibles de l'isolement (risques...

About five decades the Franc CFA-Zone in Western and Central Africa was praised as incarnation of economic and political stability in Africa, backed by France. But free convertibility and fixed parity, guaranteed by the French Treasury, mainly served the interest of a small elite of the...

Using empirical tests on 52 industrial sectors, this paper shows that industrial agglomeration has increased significantly in Europe since 1972. However, important differences can be observed between the sectors. These differences suggest that discrepancies between EU countries - which are...

The EMU governance has showed to be incapable of an effective crisis management following the global downturn. The recent decisions by European Council taken in March 2011, named the ‘Pact of the Euro’, to design a new governance of the EMU can be considered a significant attempt to give new...

ASEAN countries have deliberated on the feasibility of a monetary union that seeks to set a common currency in the region. This is in accordance with the second declaration of the Bali Concord reaffirming the intention toward economic cooperation and integration. This study investigates the...

A mixture of political and economic reasons in support of what eventually came to be known as European Union (EU) were also evident in its recent expansion. Under the politico-military umbrella of NATO , the principles of capitalism were strengthened in Europe, and by extension the interests of...

The future membership of CEECs in the eurozone involves the risk of external asymmetric shocks, due to too strong a dependence on one sector or one customer country. By defining two indicators - sector-based and geographic - of exposure to shocks, taking into account the symmetry of the export...