Uncoordinated macroeconomic policies lead to 'beggar thy neighbour' strategies which are clearly suboptimal for the European Community as a whole. Given the high degree of interdependence of their economies, European governments have a clear incentive to export their inflation or their...

What purpose does the European Monetary System serve? Who benefits from it? Is it a Deutschmark zone? Or could one argue that, despite the asymmetrical positions of France and Germany, the System does serve a certain collective interest? An attempt to answer these questions reveals a basic...