The economic crisis has laid open deficiencies in the construction of the European Economic and Monetary Union. At its foundation, it was assumed that monetary integration would reduce the likelihood of asymmetric shocks. The crisis shows, however, that endogenous mechanisms may even amplify...

Low international competitiveness of a set of euro area countries, which have become evident by large current account deficits and rising risk premiums on government bonds, is one of the most challenging economic policy issues for Europe. We analyse the role of private restructuring and public...

Will EMU accelerate or retard structural reform in labour and product markets? The theoretical literature is ambiguous. New descriptive evidence provided in this paper suggests that euro-area countries have made relatively good progress in structural reform. However, it is much less clear...

Diese IW-Analyse untersucht, welche institutionelle Architektur nötig ist, um den Euroraum dauerhaft zu stabilisieren. In der öffentlichen Debatte wird zunehmend behauptet, die Krise habe gezeigt, dass die Europäische Währungsunion (EWU) ohne mehr fiskalische Integration nicht zukunftsfähig...

Deutschland hat in den Jahren 2006 und 2007 im europäischen Vergleich beachtliche wirtschaftliche Fortschritte gemacht: Die Unternehmen haben ihre Kosten deutlich gesenkt und innovative Produkte auf den Markt gebracht. Die Arbeitnehmer haben durch Lohnzurückhaltung zur besseren preislichen...

This paper deals with potential instabilities in the Eurozone stemming from an insufficient interplay between monetary policy and reform effort on the one hand and the emergence of intra-Euro area divergences on the other. As a first step, we assess the effect of EMU on structural reform and...