We develop a simple model that highlights the costs and benefits of fixed exchange rates as they relate to trade, and show that negative export-price shocks reduce fiscal revenue and increase the likelihood of an expected currency devaluation. Using a new high-frequency data set on...

This paper discusses mechanisms to prevent and resolve foreign exchange crises in East Asia. Policies and mechanisms at the country level as well as regional and global levels are discussed. Policies at the level of a particular country to prevent foreign exchange crises include the management...

This paper considers the nature and the distribution of trade and FDI effects of a potential enlargement of the European Monetary Union (EMU) to the 10 countries that obtained EU membership in 2004. One-way and two-way error component gravity models are estimated using a data set of unbalanced...

Optimum Currency Area (OCA) approaches turn to be inadequate in the analysis of the new regional monetary integration schemes that have sprung up among developing and emerging market economies. Instead, in accordance with the concept of "original sin" (Eichengreen et al.) we argue that regional...

The debt crisis in several member states of the euro area has raised doubts on the viability of European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the future of the euro. While the launch of the euro in 1999 stirred a lot of interest in regional monetary integration and even monetary unification in...

In 1993, Czechoslovakia experienced a two-step break-up. On January 1, the country disintegrated as a political union, while preserving an economic and monetary union. Then, the Czech-Slovak monetary union collapsed on February 8. This paper analyzes the economic background of the two break-ups...

Several European countries face challenges reminiscent of those faced by the emerging economies of Latin America. The economic booms in some peripheral Euro-zone countries financed by large capital inflows; the credit and asset price booms and then the busts including Sudden Stops in capital...

Following the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, financial authorities in ASEAN+3 embarked on several new initiatives for East Asia's financial cooperation, including: (i) regional economic surveillance led by the Economic Review and Policy Dialogue (ERPD); (ii) a regional liquidity support...