The trade-off between the variability of inflation and that of output is estimated for the UK, using several different approaches to obtain the output gap, and then for a range of other countries; in all cases the trade-off retains the 'sharp turning point' found for the UK and US by other authors.

A ‘new version’ gravity model, is used to estimate the effect of a full range of de facto exchange rate regimes, as classified by Reinhart and Rogoff (2004), on bilateral trade. The results indicate that, while participation in a common currency union is typically strongly...