The massive financial instability of 2007-08 was, in the main, the result of lax monetary policy. Regulation compounded this error by allowing and encouraging excessive leverage and maturity transformation by banks. Innovation did contribute to reckless credit expansion and investments, but...

The notion of a European Monetary Union can be interpreted in different ways. To most non-economists it probably implies a single European currency and a European central bank. To economists, however, a monetary union implies only (in the words of the 1970 Werner Plan): 'the irrevocable fixing...

Disinflation, especially if coupled with financial market liberalization, has implications for public finances because it lowers the revenue from seigniorage. There might thus be a trade-off between the criteria on inflation convergence and public finances that were set at Maastricht. This...

The belief that the European Central Bank (ECB) follows the US Federal Reserve (the Fed) in setting its policy is so entrenched with market participants and commentators that the search for empirical support would seem to be a trivial task. However, this is not the case. We find that the ECB is...