Regional disparities within the European Union have always been perceived as an impediment to monetary integration. This is why discussions on a joint currency, from their very beginning, were linked to compensatory payments in the form of regional policy payments. Structural assistance to poor...

This paper analyses how adjustment dynamics, in an environment with some degree of price and wage rigidity, may create and strengthen asymmetric developments in a monetary union. It presents a simple illustrative model of adjustment dynamics that reproduces quite nicely actual developments in...

This paper examines the time varying dispersion in city house price levels across the four biggest euro area countries compared with those in the United States. Using available city-level data over the period 1987-2008, it tests for price convergence and analyses key factors explaining price...