About five decades the Franc CFA - Zone in Western and Central Africa was praised as incarnation of economic and political stability in Africa, backed by France. But free convertibility and fixed parity, guaranteed by the French Treasury, mainly served the interest of a small elite of the...

This study assesses the claim that the Austrian economy depends mainly on the German business cycle. Controlling for possible influences from the U.S. economy, it is confirmed that the Austrian and German industrial production indexes have a common long-term stochastic trend and the German...

This work analyses the effects of the slowdown that has hit Germany since 2018 on the Italian economy using data from Banca d’Italia’s Survey of Inflation and Growth Expectations. First, we briefly argue that these two economies are highly interconnected and describe the slowdown that has...

German unification hit the West German economy in a prosperous period and appeared as a huge demand shock at least for the first few quarters. This combination resulted in a major increase of imports from the main trading partners of West Germany, which may have helped to cushion recessionary...

The main characteristic of the implementation of the European Monetary Union (EMU) is the transition from various national currencies to the Euro, the common European currency. A final fixing of the individual bilateral exchange rates of all European countries involved in the Monetary Union...

The main characteristic of the implementation of the European Monetary Union (EMU) is the transition from various national currencies to the Euro, the common European currency. A final fixing of the individual bilateral exchange rates of all European countries involved in the Monetary Union...

German unification hit the West German economy in a prosperous and appeared as a huge demand shock at least for the first few quarters. This combination resulted in a major increase of imports from the main trading partners of West Germany, which may have helped to cushion recessionary trends...

This paper investigates the causes behind the euro debt crisis, particularly Germany's role in it. It is argued that the crisis is not primarily a "sovereign debt crisis" but rather a (twin) banking and balance of payments crisis. Intra-area competitiveness and current account imbalances, and...

Highlighting that France and Germany held largely contradicting hopes and aspirations for Europe's common currency, this paper analyzes how the resulting euro contradiction conditioned the ongoing euro crisis as well as current strategies to resolve it. While Germany generally prevailed in...

This paper investigates Germany's vulnerability to the ongoing Euroland crisis. In 2010-11, Germany experienced a strong rebound from the global financial crisis of 2008-09. The Euroland crisis then meant record low interest rates and a depressed euro that boosted German extra-area exports. But...