The theory of optimal currency areas states that a single currency zone should have symmetry of shocks and structures across regions. Research on monetary union in Europe has either assumed these conditions to hold close enough not to cause problems, or has focussed on asymmetries in shocks. But...

Commodity stabilisation agreements have often been suggested as a means of stabilising producers' revenues and redistributing productive resources to less developed economies (from "North" to "South"). But no empirical estimates of how much may be expected from such agreements, nor of what they...

The harshest criticism of econometrically based policy evaluation is undoubtedly the sensitivity of its conclusions to assumptions concerning the information available to policy-makers or to misspecification of the econometric models used in the evaluation. Economists appear to have accepted...

This paper analyses four costs which may be associated with monetary union. First it (obviously) allows no `relative' monetary accommodation of the kind which may assist when dealing with asymmetric shocks. This can impose significant adjustment costs. Second it does not of itself prevent...

Of all the institutional arrangements for monetary union in Europe, the fiscal convergence criteria have proved the most difficult to achieve and the most controversial because of their presumed deflationary impact on economies already suffering high unemployment. This paper examines what fiscal...

The world's industrialised economies have become increasingly interdependent over the past 30 years. The policy implications of this mutual dependence obviously depend on the spillover effects between economies: but work on this topic has used simplified models of hypothetical economies, and has...

Rational expectations are often used as a strong argument against policy activism, as they may undermine or neutralize the policymaker’s actions. Although this sometimes happens, rational expectations do not always imply policy invariance or ineffectiveness. In fact, in certain circumstances...

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...

Discusses the idea of a two‐speed Europe in the light of the recent open letter from the governing parties in Germany. This letter raised the ideal of a two‐speed Europe from a de facto configuration of the European economies to an explicit strategy for European integration. Puts forward the...