We assess monetary convergence preceding the implementation of the European Monetary Union (EMU) through Kalman filtering estimates of the risk premium of eleven forward exchange rates of European and non-European currencies. Since all participating currencies are in effect identical from...

Die EIoP ist ein referiertes, interdisziplinäres E-journal im Bereich der Forschung zur Europäischen Integration / Europaforschung. "Europäische Integration" ist dabei in einem weiten Sinne zu verstehen. Wissenschaftliche Beiträge aus allen relevanten Disziplinen, insbesondere aus den...

The Centre for European Reform is a think-tank devoted to improving the quality of the debate on the European Union. It is a forum for people with ideas from Britain and across the continent to discuss the many political, economic and social challenges facing Europe. It seeks to work with...

This paper presents a positive theory of centralization of political decisions in an international union. My central claim is that lobbies play a role in determining the assignment of competencies to the union because their power of influence can increase or decrease under centralization. I show...

Global trade contracted quickly and severely during the global crisis. This paper, using a unique dataset of French firms, matching together export data with firm-level credit constraints, shows that most of the 2008-2009 trade collapse is accounted by the unprecedented demand shock and by...

The unprecedented drop in international trade during the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 has mainly been analysed at the macroeconomic or sectoral level. However, exporters who are heterogeneous in terms of productivity, size or external financial dependence should be...

We show that the composition of imports has important implications for the optimal volatility of the exchange rate. Using input-output data for 25 countries we document substantial differences in the import and non-tradable content of final demand components, and in the role played by imported...

This paper discusses the channels between openness and productivity and trade hampering factors. The stylized facts from the heterogeneous firms literature suggests that firms face market entry costs for each new product they export and to each new export market. Transport costs, border costs...

Although recent research shows that the euro has spurred cross-border financial integration, the exact mechanisms remain unknown. We investigate the underlying channels of the euro’s effect on financial integration using data on bilateral banking linkages among twenty industrial countries in...

There is an ongoing debate in the literature about the quality content of Chinese exports and to what extent China imposes a threat to the market positions of advanced economies. While China’s export structure is very similar to that of the advanced world, its export unit values are well below...