Soon, euro area membership could more than double, with the vast majority of accession countries being quite different in economic terms compared with current members. Under the current decision-making system, this can lead to high decisionmaking costs and there is a risk that monetary policy...

This volume is based on papers delivered at the second CESifo-Delphi Conferences (Munich, November 2003, and Delphi, June 2004), which are jointly organized by CESifo and the Department of International and European Economic Studies of the Athens University of Economics and Business. The...

Soon, euro area membership could more than double, with the vast majority of accession countries being quite different in economic terms compared with current members. Under the current decision-making system, this can lead to high decisionmaking costs and there is a risk that monetary policy...

The pending enlargement of the European Monetary Union (EMU) has brought to the fore the discussion of the voting right distribution in the European Central Bank (ECB) council. We show that, in a model where labor unions internalize the inflationary consequences of wage setting, deviating from a...

In May 2004 the European Union will undergo the largest expansion in its history when ten countries--Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia--become members. The number of new members and their diversity make this "big bang"...

In recent years, fiscal performance in Central Europe has steadily deteriorated, in contrast to the improvement in the Baltics. This paper explores the determinants of such differences among countries slated for EU accession. Regression estimates suggest that economic and institutional...

In May 2004 the European Union will undergo the largest expansion in its history when ten countries--Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia--become members. The number of new members and their diversity make this "big bang"...