Understanding EMU : the role of labour market institutions -- The other road to Maastricht : currency blocs, wage moderation, and social conflict -- The perils of coordination : wages and labour relations from the European Monetary System to EMU -- Diversity without unity : labour unions and...

We derive four sets of counterfactual national interest rate paths for the 17 Euro Area countries for the time period 1999 to 2012. They approximate desirable national interest rates countries would have liked to implement if they could still conduct independent monetary policy. We find that...

Soon, euro area membership could more than double, with the vast majority of accession countries being quite different in economic terms compared with current members. Under the current decision-making system, this can lead to high decisionmaking costs and there is a risk that monetary policy...