German public finances are currently subject to considerable changes in the macro-economic environment and this is probably only the beginning of more far-reaching developments in the future. Like many other European countries, Germany, on the one hand, faces the fiscal problems emerging from an...

Does a monetary union need fiscal shock absorbers helping the participating countries to cope with asymmetric shocks? The consensus in the debate over EMU argues that the answer is yes. In this paper, we revisit the issue, building on a dynamic, general equilibrium framework of regions in a...