Stage Three of the European Monetary Union (EMU) will start on January 1, 1999. The new currency area, for which the name "Euroland" has been coined, will comprise 11 countries: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. The...

The cyclical situation at the beginning of the European Monetary Union (EMU) is favorable: The upswing in Euroland has firmed, unemployment is going down, and inflation is low. However, economic growth outside the new currency area has weakened significantly during 1998, and fears are mounting...

This paper analyses trends in sectoral specialisation in the EU and concludes the following: 1) The European production structure appears more homogenous than that of the US. 2) While sectoral specialisation has shown a slight increase in some smaller euro area countries towards the end-1990s,...

Aggregated output in industrialized countries has become less volatile over the pastdecades. Whether this “Great Moderation” can be found in firm level data as wellremains disputed. We study the evolution of firm level output volatility using abalanced panel dataset on German firms that...

This paper analyzes the factors underlying the weakness of the euro. For this purpose, the framework advocated by Clarida and Gali (1994) is used. Within this model, three structural shocks drive the dynamics of the endogenous variables: aggregate supply shocks, aggregate spending shocks, and...

This paper analyzes the factors underlying the weakness of the euro. For this purpose, the framework advocated by Clarida and Gali (1994) is used. Within this model, three structural shocks drive the dynamics of the endogenous variables: aggregate supply shocks, aggregate spending shocks, and...