We show that, with benevolent policymakers and fiscal leadership, monetary unification reduces inflation, taxes and public spending. These disciplining effects of a monetary union, which rise with the number of fiscal players in the union, are likely to raise welfare. Joining an optimally...

In this paper, the experience of OECD countries with public management reform, as has been attempted since the nineteen seventies until now, is discussed. In particular we focus on the lessons which can be drawn from public management reform attempts in English speaking countries on the one hand...

This paper explores under what conditions a European Monetary Union (EMU) is an optimum currency area. The scope for an EMU increases with convergence of structural and fiscal policies, small money holdings, a conservative European Central Bank, and dependent national central banks. How national...

The Maastricht Treaty (1992) has meant an important step forwards in the process of European integration. Not only goods and financial markets, but als labour markets are freed from national barriers. Will this lead to significant increases in migration flows? The differences in wage and...

In this paper, we estimate fundamental bilateral real exchange rates for a group of eight accession countries using a panel-cointegration approach for the period 1993-2003. We document a significant positive link between productivity levels and the corresponding real exchange rate levels. Future...

Emotions are largely absent in economic models. However, many theories still cease to explain the actual situations. We combine regular microeconomic theory with emotions. We will focus on an FDI decision of a firm, including both business-economics and emotional variables in the firms...

The purpose of this comment is to demonstrate that their theoretical result concerning the first order derivative of relative inflation persistence with respect to the degree of accommodation is incorrect. As a consequence, the sign of the first derivative becomes ambiguous. We provide an...

Unprecedented growth in private cross-border asset trade and asymmetric internationalbalance sheets are well-documented stylized facts of financial integration. Moreover, weobserve that current accounts are no longer the number one determinant of external balances. Advancing the work of...