We explore income and consumption smoothing patterns among European Community (EC) countries and among OECD countries during the period 1966--90. We find that, for OECD as well as for EC countries, about 40 percent of shocks to GDP are smoothed at the one year frequency, with about half the...

In the 24 years since its introduction, the euro has experienced a financial crisis, a government debt crisis, a global pandemic, and an energy crisis-and survived. Using a model focusing on households, this Weekly Report shows that the monetary union’s stability is rooted in the fact that the...

Two seemingly unconnected empirical results suggest an intriguing mechanism. First, economic integration helps harmonize prices internationally, with trade being the primary channel (Rogoff 1996, Goldberg and Knetter 1997). Second, monetary union may greatly increase the amount of trade among...