This stresses that the impact of German reunification on the DM is affected by current plans to move toward monetary union in the European Community. The fundamental value of the DM is different depending upon whether Germany will be part of a larger monetary union in the year 2000, or whether...

In contrast to conventional analyses of monetary union between two particular countries or sets of countries, this paper treats the possible expansion of a given currency area as a continuous variable ranging from zero to one; zero if there is no expansion and one if all sources of imports and...

This Paper reports on four basic results of tests of the standard gravity equation. First, geography can serve to reflect comparative advantage as well as transportation costs. Second, the effect of distance on bilateral trade is mostly a substitution effect between closer and more distant trade...

How much risk sharing takes place between regions within countries, between countries internationally, and what are the lessons for EMU? We study these questions based on regional data from the US, Canada, the UK and Italy, and national data from an international sample of 23 OECD countries,...

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...

We argue that wages have increased so far ahead of labour productivity in East Germany as to produce a problem that will continue to hound German policy-makers for the next two decades. Despite rapid rates of capital accumulation (around 9%) and growth (around 5%) in East Germany over the coming...