This paper estimates a medium-scale open economy DSGE model for Germany and the rest of the Euro Area (REA). The parameter estimates indicate that there is a modest degree of structural heterogeneity between Germany and the rest of the Euro Area. In particular, (i) the private sector in Germany...

Bilateral and regional cooperation initiatives in Asia have been growing in importance over the last five years.These accords span the real and financial sectors; rather than following the more typical pattern of "trade first,money later", recent policy initiatives involve the simultaneous...

We analyze fiscal rules within a Monetary Union in the presence of (i) asymmetric information on member states' potential output and (ii) bail-out among member states. The first-best deficit is contingent on the cycle, that is, on member states' output gap. In the presence of asymmetric...

This paper examines the sensibility of a proposed monetary union in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The study hypothesizes that the majority of the economies in the SADC region are candidates for a monetary union. We test this hypothesis against one of the prime optimal...

Historically, dissolutions of currency unions are not unusual. I use an annual panel data set covering 245 country pairs that use a common currency (of which 128 are dissolved) from 1948 through 1997 to characterize currency union exits. I find that departures from a currency union tend to occur...