DSGE models based on New Keynesian principles, which have been extended to allow for banking, the zero lower bound on interest rates (ZLB), and varying price duration, can account well for recent macroeconomic behavior across a variety of economies. These models Önd that active Öscal policy...

DSGE models based on New Keynesian principles, which have been extended to allow for banking, the zero lower bound on interest rates (ZLB), and varying price duration, can account well for recent macroeconomic behavior across a variety of economies. These models Önd that active Öscal policy...

We propose a model-based measure of sovereign credit ratings derived solely from the fiscal position of a country: a forecast of its future debt liabilities, and its potential to use tax policy to repay these. We use this measure to calculate credit ratings for fourteen European countries over...

This paper argues that the crisis was an outcome of EMU: setting a common monetary policy for countries with different initial inflation rates. The crisis countries were those with high inflation rates which then had negative real interest rates and consequently over-borrowed. Current policy...

We construct a macro DSGE model of the eurozone and its two main regions, the North and the South, with the aim of matching the macro facts of these economies by indirect inference and using the resulting empirically-based model to assess possible new policy regimes. The model we have found to...

We construct a macro DSGE model of the eurozone and its two main regions, the North and the South, with the aim of matching the macro facts of these economies by indirect inference and using the resulting empirically-based model to assess possible new policy regimes. The model we have found to...

The theory of optimal currency areas, due to Mundell and McKinnon, has enjoyed a revival of interest in the wake of European discussions of monetary union. The basic theme of this old literature is that there are potential gains for stabilization policy in an independent exchange rate and money...

Since the establishment in 1979 of the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the EMS a number of countries, after entry, have experienced a substantial and persistent rise in their real exchange rate (the ratio of domestic to foreign prices). This paper explains this phenomenon in terms of a `peso problem'...

Using the recent EC Commission report `One Market, One Money' as a point of reference, we consider the merits of a single currency in Europe. The main benefit is the reduction in transaction costs, which the report estimates at 0.4% of European Community (EC) GDP (but much less in countries with...