The so-called Troika, consisting of the EU-Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), was supposed to support the member states of the euro area which had been hit hard by a sovereign debt crisis. For that purpose, economic adjustment programs were...

This paper analyzes reforms and adjustments in the context of the Euro and the global financial crises. Taking the perspective of the evolutionary approach to institutions, the formation of a new currency area is not unidirectional. The process leading to the euro is an example of a common...

We assess monetary convergence preceding the implementation of the European Monetary Union (EMU) through Kalman filtering estimates of the risk premium of eleven forward exchange rates of European and non-European currencies. Since all participating currencies are in effect identical from...

We propose a novel metric to evaluate price developments within the euro area (EA), which involves the decomposition of the overall variability of cross country inflation rates into common and idiosyncratic labor cost and markup components. The analysis yields several interesting results. First,...

This paper quantifies the economic influence that shocks to EMU cohesion, which in turn reflect the incomplete nature of the monetary union, have on the rest of the world. Disentangling euro area stress shocks and global risk aversion shocks based on a combination of sign, magnitude and...

Beginning in 1992, Greece's economy was at least partially managed consistent with European Union (EU) membership. Greece joined the EU on January 1, 2001, adopting the Euro at a conversion rate of 340.75 Drachmas per Euro.From 1995-2000, Greece had 3.2% average GDP growth, 5.5% consumer...

This paper analyzes the Euro crisis in light of the experience of center-periphery relations over the last 40 years of renewed financial globalization. The crisis shows the characteristic pattern evident in so many other crises in the developing world: i.e. “boom” and “bust” phases of...

The European Central Bank's relationship to the national governments of the monetary union was modeled as a contest between fiscal and monetary dominance early in the euro crisis (Buiter 2010, drawing on Sargent and Wallace 1981). This paper shows how strategic behavior helped to shape the...

The recent Global Financial Crisis (2008-2010) and the accompanying Great Recession (2008-2011) show that the level and the rate of monetary and financial systems integration deployed within the Euro area is not sustainable in the long run. Instead of acting as a buffer against external shocks...

This paper analyzes the causes of the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone and examines the policy alternatives confronting euro area governments. It suggests that pooling fiscal risks, creating an EU Treasury and issuing jointly-backed euro bonds is an optimal solution and the inevitable...