Two seemingly unconnected empirical results suggest an intriguing mechanism. First, economic integration helps harmonize prices internationally, with trade being the primary channel (Rogoff 1996, Goldberg and Knetter 1997). Second, monetary union may greatly increase the amount of trade among...

This paper uses data on German government bond futures options to examine the behaviour of market expectations around monetary policy actions of the European Central Bank (ECB). In particular, this paper focuses on the asymmetries in bond market expectations, as measured by the skewness of...

In January 2007, the European Commission presented the Action Programme for reducing administrative burden on businesses at EU level by 25% by 2012. The Action Programme was endorsed by the Spring European Council in March 2007. It addressed the Administrative Burdens of EU origin in 13 subject...