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 discusses a wide range of indicators of the degree of integration of the euro area banking system. It is concerned with volume data, a less developed field of research compared with studies on prices/rates. We first set out a methodological framework, a mixture of elementary and more...

This paper examines the degree of price rigidity in Belgian consumer prices, using a large database. As to the observed degree of rigidity, the results reveal a substantial amount of heterogeneity, not only across but also within product categories. While prices turn out to be perfectly flexible...

This paper identifies the basic features of the price setting mechanism in the Spanish economy, using a large dataset that contains over 1.1 million price records and covers around 70% of the expenditure on the CPI basket. In particular, the paper identifies differences in the frequency and size...

This paper uses a model of import prices whereby exporters to the euro area set export prices partly as a mark-up on their production costs (i.e., the degree of exchange rate pass-through) and partly in line with euro area producer prices (i.e., pricing-to-market). Using both time series and...

This paper brings together empirical research on price and wage dynamics for the Portuguese economy based both on micro and macro data. As regards firms' pricing behaviour the most noticeable finding is that prices in Portugal are somewhat less flexible than in the United States but more...