This paper examines the effect of monopolistic labour unions' behavior on governments' incentives to undertake labour market reform, inside and outside a symmetric and an asymmetric monetary union (MU). Incentives for reform are increased inside the MU when governments and labour unions move...

The "conservative central banker" has come under attack recently. Explicitly modeling the interaction of a trade union with monetary policy, it has been argued that the standard solution to the inflationary bias in monetary policy might actually be welfare reducing if the trade union has an...

International comparisons show that countries with co-ordinated wage setting generally have lower unemployment than countries with less co-ordinated wage setting. This paper argues that the monetary regime may affect whether co-ordination among many wage setters is feasible. A strict monetary...

Unter Ökonomen besteht weitgehend Einigkeit darüber, daß Geldpolitik langfristig keine realwirtschaftlichen Effekte hat. Nach diesem bekannten Neutralitätsergebnis führt ein höheres Geldmengenwachstum langfristig lediglich zu höherer Inflation bei unveränderter Beschäftigung. Diese...