Important questions concerning the structure and operation of a European Central Bank remain unanswered. Although there exists no precedent for the process of institution-building in which the European Community is currently engaged, the founding and early operations of the Federal Reserve...

This paper analyses the costs and benefits of European monetary unification. The benefits take the form of the reduction in exchange risk, equalization of interest rates, decline in relative price variability and general increase in economic efficiency likely to accompany unification. The costs...

Following the fiscal stabilisation of 1926 and the accompanying return of the French franc to the Gold Standard, France enjoyed several years of fast growth and remained immune to the effects of the Great Depression until early 1931. Accounts of this period emphasize the undervaluation of the...

Business cycles reflect changes over time in the amount of trade between individuals. In this paper we show that incorporating explicitly intra-temporal gains from trade between individuals into a macroeconomic model can provide new insight into the potential mechanisms driving economic...

Using indirect inference based on a VAR we confront US data from 1972 to 2007 with a standard New Keynesian model in which an optimal timeless policy is substituted for a Taylor rule. We find the model explains the data both for the Great Acceleration and the Great Moderation. The implication is...

The discussion of monetary policy in France, which is intended for a chapter in a general handbook on monetary policy that will cover a number of other countries as well, begins with the early postwar period and carries the story up to the present. A separate section analyses the new framework...

This paper discusses the conditions under which currency unions would be desirable and viable. We discuss and present new empirical evidence concerning the operation of existing currency unions in federal states and among regional country groupings. In particular, we examine the traditional...

We develop and compute a dynamic equilibrium model where economies differ on the relative efficiency of financial intermediaries and, therefore on households portfolios and currency holdings. Our model economies have some of the features of the different financial structures in countries of the...

This paper examines three questions concerning the international coordination of macroeconomic policy. First it examines whether it is advantageous for governments to cooperate in the determination of monetary and fiscal policies. Second it asks whether it is helpful for governments to establish...