This paper deals with the problems of assessing the effects of fiscal policy in the European Monetary Union. Here, we face wide cross-country differences in key fiscal parameters, some of which may also be vary over time (business cycle). Moreover, these effects may also depend on trade...

Evidence suggests that after a period of convergence in the early and mid-1990s, the euro area economies may have started diverging. As a consequence, the common monetary policy could become well-suited for a number of countries. This paper studies the extent and severity of the recent...

Using recent advances in time-varying spectral methods, this research analyses the growth cycles of the core of the euro area in terms of frequency content and phasing of cycles. The methodology uses the con-tinuous wavelet transform (CWT) and also Hilbert wavelet pairs in the setting of a...

This paper presents the salient aspects of Finland’s monetary and exchange rate policies during the run-up to monetary union in the 1990s. In the course of slightly more than a decade, Finland’s monetary and exchange rate policies were thoroughly revamped. The remnants of heavy regulation...

The possible participation of Finland in the Stage III of the European Monetary Union would constitute a major change in the operating environment of the Finnish economy. As a member of the common currency area, Finnish interest and exchange rates would no longer be determined by domestic...

Output gaps for ten European countries and the USA are estimated based on a CES production function with input augmentation in technological progress. The substitution parameter is estimated from the coefficients of the labour and capital demand functions. Estimation is carried out using...

This paper considers how the "true" common monetary policy that is conducted by the ECB under various sources of uncertainty will differ from the policy that was agreed in the Maastricht Treaty, and how the uncertainties may induce a representative government to criticise the common monetary...

The Balassa-Samuelson (BS) model is evaluated in eight of the eleven EMU countries. This model suggests that productivity differentials between traded and non-traded goods sectors generate sectoral inflation differentials (dual inflation). Furthermore, differentials in the degree of dual...

This paper examines labour productivity levels and growth rates in 10 EMU economies: Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Austria, Finland, Ireland and Portugal. In general, European economies still lag behind the United States in terms of productivity level. Available estimates...