This paper starts with a brief description of the situation before the establishment of the European Monetary Union (EMU), i.e., the problems of the European Monetary System (EMS) which was established in 1979 and was in need of repair. The paper then deals with the various possibilities of...

During the last decade, economists have intensively searched for evidence on the importance of the Balassa-Samuelson (B-S) hypothesis in explaining nominal convergence. One general result is that B-S can at best explain only part of the excess inflation observed in the European catching-up...

Are the characteristics of the exchange rate regime relevant for the degree of fiscal discipline? What are the conclusions for fiscal behavior in Europe after the transition to EMU? These are the central questions that are analyzed in this paper from a theoretical point of view. After a general...