According to Bordo and James [2008, “A long term perspective on the Euro, ” NBER Working Paper, No. 13815], history shows that multinational monetary unions have dissolved mainly under the consequences of external shocks. This paper provides a theoretical model demonstrating their point.

This paper discusses the implications of overconfidence when it affects a monetary policy-maker. We consider two forms of overconfidence: the illusion of precision and the illusion of control. Embedding them in a standard New Keynesian framework, we derive the optimal term length of a central...

External shocks, be they political or economic, can pose a significant threat to the sustainability of a monetary union. This paper focuses on the openness of a monetary union, and examines how the degrees and characteristics of the sensitivities of its member nations towards external shocks...