In light of persistent in ation dispersion and rising debt levels in the EMU, this paper investigates the welfare implications of budget-neutral scal policies that counteract in ation di erentials. In a two-country DSGE model of a monetary union with traded and non-traded goods a national scal...

The paper addresses the question what effects the enlargement of a monetary union will have on necessary structural reforms in the (low distortion) member countries and the (high distortion) candidate countries. While monetary union lowers reforms in the candidate countries, members of the...

The paper addresses the question what effects the enlargement of a monetary union will have on necessary structural refoms in the (low distortion) member countries and the (high distortion) candidate country. While monetary union lowers reforms in the candidate country, members of the monetary...

The combination of discretionary monetary policy, labor-market distortions and nominal wage rigidity yields an inflation bias as monetary policy tries to exploit nominal wage contracts to address labour-market distortions Although an inflation target eliminates this inflation bias, it creates a...

Building on a micro-founded model of a two region-world economy in the tradition of the new open economy literature, this paper analyses the strategic interaction of large wage-setters and the central bank when switching from a regime of uncoordinated national monetary policies to a monetary...

This paper investigates the effects of members' exits from a currency union on the credibility of the common currency. In our currency union model, the inflation rate of the common currency is determined by majority voting among N member countries that are heterogeneous with respect to their...