In the first years of the eurozone debt crisis, European governments were busy struggling to achieve short-term financial stabilisation of banks and entire countries. Now, after the OMT programme and other stabilisation measures have calmed investors, attention has shifted to two issues:...

The current state of affairs in the euro area (EA) instills hope in economic recovery but also substantial concern. The crisis countries have made considerable, albeit quite uneven, progress in central areas of reform. Yet severe obstacles remain. Moreover, European policy makers have reformed...

The onset of the financial crisis in 2008 has highlighted the problems of diverging external imbalances within Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the role of persistent losses in competitiveness. This paper starts by investigating some of the competitiveness factors which contributed to...

This paper was commissioned by DG ECFIN from the EU Commission as part of the "EMU@10" project and is published in Hungarian language by the permission of the EU Commission. The original English language version of the paper is available at:...

A cikkben a szerzõk azt vizsgálják, hogy az EU-hoz 2004 óta csatlakozott tizenkét új tagállam az euróövezethez való csatlakozás szempontjából milyen mértékben felel meg az optimális valutaövezet elmélete (Optimal Currency Area, OCA) által támasztott kritériumoknak. Fõ...

The paper discusses the risks and challenges faced by the new members on the road to the euro and the strategies for and timing of euro adoption. We investigate the real-nominal convergence nexus from the perspective of euro area entry. We argue that the initial level of economic development as...

There are two possible responses to the Greek debt crisis: 'Plan A', continued official lending, for as long as needed, with possible voluntary private sector involvement, and 'Plan B', coercive pre-emptive or post-default restructuring with significant face value reduction in privately-held...

Ist der Austritt Griechenlands aus der Währungsunion, verbunden mit einer externen Abwertung der neuen Währung, eine gangbare Alternative zur derzeitigen Strategie der internen Abwertung, verbunden mit öffentlichem Kapitaltransfer? Das ifo Institut vergleicht in dem Beitrag die...

Nach einem Vorschlag von Wolfgang Schäuble soll der EU-Währungskommissar stärker Einfluss auf die Haushalte der Euromitgliedstaaten nehmen. Ein politisch unabhängiger, ausschließlich auf die Haushaltspolitik fokussierter EU-Währungskommissar könnte nach Ansicht von Thomas Straubhaar,...