Country-specific business cycle fluctuations are potentially very costly for member states of currency unions because they lack monetary autonomy. The actual costs depend on the extent to which consumption is shielded from these fluctuations and thus on the extent of risk sharing across member...

Regional disparities within the European Union have always been perceived as an impediment to monetary integration. This is why discussions on a joint currency, from their very beginning, were linked to compensatory payments in the form of regional policy payments. Structural assistance to poor...

Zusammenfassung Dieser Beitrag liefert einen Uberblick über die Bedeutung asymmetrischer makroökonomischer Strukturen in den EWU Mitgliedsländern für die einheitliche Geldpolitik. Zunächst wird im Rahmen eines Modells illustriert, welche grundsätzliche Bedeutung asymmetrischen...

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...