As the euro is on its second decade, the European sovereign debt crisis and the ever more evident disparities in competitiveness among member states are prompting many to question whether monetary union is bringing more benefits than costs. The optimum currency area (OCA) theory provides a...

The public finance constraints introduced by the Maastricht Treaty have been subject to numerous debates among economists. Balassone and Franco (2000) pointed out, for instance, that the fulfillment of these constraints allows for fiscal discipline and flexibility and excludes any bias from an...

In this paper, we investigate the issues regarding the stabilization of public debt and its decrease down to 60 per cent of GDP for selected European Union countries using the primary balance derived from the public debt dynamic model as a leading indicator. We find that there is a high...

Within the debate that involves the application of a tax discipline in the EMU, some authors have questioned the adequacy of the use of the same tax rules for all the different member states, appealing to a more temporary tax flexibility for the small and less developed countries. For such...

Within the debate that involves the application of a tax discipline in the EMU, some authors have questioned the adequacy of the use of the same tax rules for all the different member states, appealing to a more temporary tax flexibility for the small and less developed countries. For such...