Purpose-This paper makes an analysis of trade in the WAMZ as well as the WAMZ's trade with other countries in West Africa, Europe and Asia based on the Optimal Currency Area (OCA) theory. This theory first proposed by Mundell (1961) as a basis for evaluating whether or not an area constitutes an...

Against the background of the recent housing boom and bust in countries such as Spain and Ireland, we investigate in this paper the macroeconomic consequences of cross-border banking in monetary unions such as the euro area. For this purpose, we incorporate in an otherwise standard two-region...

As the recent struggles connected with the readjustment of exchange rates within the European Monetary System have shown, the relatively unproblematic "running in" period of the EMS, which was supposed to be a constructive contribution to the creation of a more viable international monetary...

The record of the European Monetary System at the five-year mark is rather a disappointment for the System’s advocates. Has the “EMS experiment” failed? Or is there potential for developing the System further to the advantage of all member countries?

Critics of the EMS claim that it has failed to realise the hopes aroused at the time of its inception; a convergence of economic policies, they maintain, has not been induced by fixed exchange rates. What is the true position with regard to the convergence of economic policies?

The none too firmly established position of the IMF with regard to the realization of the objectives of its Articles of Agreement has been additionally impaired by the establishment of the European Monetary System. From an international point of view a revision of the present EMS concept would...