This paper develops composite indicators of financial integration within the euro area for both price-based and quantity-based indicators covering money, bond, equity and banking markets. Prior to aggregation, individual integration indicators are harmonised by applying the probability integral...

We explain how the external counterpart of the euro area M3 can be analysed by using the euro area balance of payments (b.o.p.). This is possible because the net external assets of the monetary financial institutions (MFIs) are present in two statistical frameworks that follow similar...

Against the background of increasing competition and other significant structural changes implied by globalisation, maintaining and enhancing competitiveness has evolved into one of the prime concerns in most countries. Following up on previous work (see in particular ECB Occasional Papers No....

Which have been the consequences of the euro for integration and economic performance in the Baltic Sea region? After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the three Baltic states and Poland have been rapidly catching-up with Western Europe. The Great Recession became a great setback for the former,...

This paper investigates quantitatively the benefits from participation in the Economic and Monetary Union for individual Euro area countries. Using the synthetic control method, we estimate how real GDP per capita would have developed for the EMU member states, if those countries had not joined...

This study uses firm-level data on a large sample of European manufacturing firms to investigate the links between opening up foreign affiliates and firms' productivity. The analysis is guided by recent theoretical models of international trade with firm heterogeneity. The paper finds that while...

As an effect of the “no opt-out” clause, Romania is facing, rather soon, the Euro adoption challenge along with all its implications, an aim that has become rather challenging given the recent evolutions in Greece, Ireland or Portugal. Apart from foreseeing the future of the Euro-Zone,...

This paper evaluates the conduct of monetary policy in Hungary using standard Taylor rules as well as extended rules that incorporate real exchange rate effects. Moreover, we explicitly consider the impact of future euro area entry by estimating instrument rules that permit an influence from...

Reduced exchange rate volatility and higher and less heterogeneous quality of institutional rules and macroeconomic policies are two of the main (anticipated and concurring) effects expected from a currency union. In this paper we measure the magnitude of these two effects for the Eurozone...

Abstract Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate Okun’s Law that proposes an inverse relationship between the rate of unemployment and economic growth. In other words, the higher the unemployment rate the lower the economic growth for a given country which represents...