This research note discusses the Euro crisis in Greece in light of the referendum of July the 5th. It lays out the social and political costs of a GREXIT, but also of a continuing austerity policy. It proposes a reform policy fostering growth in Greece and discusses the role of conditionality....

Purpose - A spectre is hunting embryonic African monetary zones: the EMU crisis. This paper assesses real, monetary and fiscal policy convergence within the proposed WAM and EAM zones. The introduction of common currencies in West and East Africa is facing stiff challenges in the timing of...

Purpose - A spectre is hunting embryonic African monetary zones: the EMU crisis. This paper assesses real and monetary policy convergence within the proposed WAM and EAM zones. The introduction of common currencies in West and East Africa is facing stiff challenges in the timing of monetary...

This paper examines business cycle synchronization in the European Monetary Union with a special focus on the core-periphery pattern in the aftermath of the crisis. Using a quarterly index for business cycle synchronization by Cerqueira (2013), our panel data estimates suggest that it is...

This paper attempts to assess the feasibility of Malaysia to rejoin the monetary union with Singapore and Brunei which it left in 1973 in terms of the real convergence criteria suggested by optimum currency areas (OCA) theory and the nominal convergence criteria specified by the Maastricht...

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...

Although there is no single yardstick to gauge the degree of integration, there is ample evidence that financial markets in the euro area have some way to go before national demarcation lines will effectively disappear and financial market integration is satisfactory. While there has been a push...

After joining the EU in 1995, uncertainties over the future legal and administrative system remained latent. But there was also rising awareness of Austria's possibilities to influence the decision making processes in Brussels. The Austrian system of social partnership, based on centralized wage...

Persistent unemployment after recessions and the policies required to bring it down are the subject of an ongoing debate. One view suggests there are fundamental changes in the labor market that imply a long-term higher rate of unemployment, requiring the implementation of structural policy...