Despite the fact that the correlation between policy rates in the U.S. and in the euro area has been low—at least over the past three decades—long term interest rates in the two regions have been highly correlated. More recently (since the early 1990s) their levels have also...

The paper discusses the risks and challenges faced by the new members on the road to the euro and the strategies for and timing of euro adoption. We investigate the real-nominal convergence nexus from the perspective of euro area entry. We argue that the initial level of economic development as...

In recent years a new consensus has emerged in macroeconomics in general and in model building in particular, the so called New Keynesian Paradigm (NKM).This paper applies Bayesian estimation techniques to a time series data set of the euro area and presents estimates of a DSGE model. The...

This paper develops an approach to measure the uncertainty surrounding expected GDP growth that prevails in the economy. This is accomplished by making use of consensus forecasts of GDP growth and by studying the properties of distributions of forecasted euro area GDP growth. A euro area...

At the moment of the euro cash changeover, inflation perceptions in the euro area deviated from measured inflation, and in some euro-area Member States in a persistent way. In recent years, a growing body of literature has developed on the factors that might explain this deviation. This paper...

The paper examines the implications of EMU for world macroeconomic and financial stability, distinguishing EMU effects from other global factors at work. It concludes that EMU is having on the whole stabilising effects on the world economy, particularly in neighbouring regions.

On 1 January 1999, the euro became the single currency of eleven EU Member States, thereby replacing the different national currencies at the respective irrevocably fixed conversion rates. The Member States concerned ceded their monetary policy powers to the European System of Central Banks...

The implications of ageing populations over the coming decades at the global level will be significant in terms of not only a slowdown in the growth rate of output and living standards but also with regard to fiscal and financial market trends. Given the backdrop of the downward trend in...

The thesis of this paper is that there is no historical precedent for Europe's monetary union (EMU). While it is possible to point to similar historical experiences, the most obvious of which were in the 19th century, occurred in Europe, and had “union†as part of their names, EMU...

This paper considers the potential impact of a shift in official foreign reserves from dollars to euros using a global DSGE model. This paper uses QUEST III, a multi-region global DSGE model, to study the macroeconomic effects of a gradual equalization of official foreign reserves between...