Monetary Issues: Monetary Unions: Between International Trade and National Sovereignty -- Why a Monetary Union?- Monetary Policy in a Monetary Union: Lessons from Simple Models -- Institutions and Monetary Policy -- Fiscal Issues: Government Deficits, Transfers and Debt -- Fiscal Policies in a...

Countries in a monetary union can adjust to shocks either through internal or external mechanisms. We quantitatively assess for the European Union a number of relevant mechanisms suggested by Mundell’s optimal currency area theory, and compare them to the United States. For this purpose, we...