This paper presents a generalized framework where a discretionary government finds it ex-post optimal to create a downward bias in the exchange rate in addition to the inflation bias of Barro-Gordon type. This dual credibility model helps explain the empirical pattern of public debt financing...

In 2009 the euro entered a crisis from which it has yet to emerge. It has led to increased social tensions across the Eurozone and even speculation that the euro might break up. Against this background this paper sets out to re-examine the Hard ECU, the British government's 1990 alternative to...

In this paper, the monetary policy independence of European nations in the years before European Monetary Union (EMU) is investigated using cointegration techniques. Daily data is used to assess pairwise relationships between individual EMU nations and ‘lead' nation Germany, to assess the...

In this article, the issue of the monetary independence problem in view of the Romania's European Monetary Union accession is investigated empirically. It is frequently argued that for such a country, the main cost of participation in a currency area is the loss of monetary policy independence....

On 11-12 May 2011, SUERF and the Belgian Financial Forum, in association with the Brussels Finance Institute and the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) organized the 29th SUERF Colloquium "New Paradigms in Money and Finance?". All the papers in the present SUERF Study are based on...

There are many issues associated with the Eurozone accession of Poland. The goal of this paper is to analyse one, but very important aspect, namely – the macroeconomic impact of the loss of autonomous monetary policy. In order to answer this question, we build a two country DSGE model with...

Structural reforms that increase competition in product and labor markets are often indicated as the main policy option available for peripheral Europe to regain competitiveness and boost output. We show that, in a crisis that pushes the nominal interest rate to its lower bound, these reforms do...

This paper studies the spillover effects of the ECB's monetary policies on non-euro area countries over the period 2004-2016, using a GVAR methodology, applied to a large sample of countries and an ample set of variables. Monetary policies are proxied by short-term interest rates and the Wu and...

This paper studies monetary regime choice between monetary union and flexible exchange rate regime in a large open economy framework. The classical approach emphasizes that monetary unions are inherently costly because a single interest rate cannot respond effectively to different shocks of...