The rising delinquencies in the U.S. subprime mortgage market in 2006 and the succeeding collapse in housing prices had a considerably negative impact on the functioning of the European financial systems and the smooth operation of European economies. Indeed, in the Euro-area, what started as a...

Despite the widespread use of the notion of a country's competitiveness in public policy discussion, there is some reluctance among academic economists in accepting the concept. The competitiveness notion can be made theoretically acceptable by distinguishing its useful integral part, which...

We explore the role of the transfers that UK regions received from the European structural and cohesion funds, as well as other economic and social factors, in determining the support for the Remain vote in the Brexit referendum. We find that past European transfers have played virtually no role...

Euroization is defined as the adoption of the Euro currency by the authorities from a country outside the Euro area, as a legal currency and as an official currency, and this means that the country chooses to give up its national currency and that the national bank gives up using the monetary...

In diesem Beitrag folgen wir der aktuellen Diskussion über die Aussagekraft der Maastricht-Kriterien für die Auswahl von Ländern zur Teilnahme an der EWU. Es wird gezeigt, daß diese Kriterien weder die Theorie optimaler Währungsgebiete ausreichend reflektieren noch der...

Adopting the European single currency is reevaluated amid changing environment of the existing euro area. In this paper we are mapping those divergences among member countries that challenge the optimal currency area (OCA), at least from a theoretical perspective. Nevertheless, the decision to...

Does exchange rate variability affect the speed of external adjustment? We study bilateral trade balances for a sample of 18 European countries over the period from 1948 through 2008. We find that, with the introduction of the euro, trade imbalances among euro area members widened considerably,...

The financial crisis in Europe has resulted in a new assessment of monetary and financial integration both in Europe and in Asia. Before the current crisis, regional integration in monetary and fiscal affairs including mechanisms to stabilize exchange rates enjoyed a lot of academic and...