This paper examines the contemporaneous relationship between the exchange rate regime and structural economic reforms over a period of 30 years. Using panel data techniques, we look at both a broad 'world sample' and an OECD country sample. We investigate empirically whether structural reforms...

This paper investigates the relationship between the exchange rate regime and the degree of structural reforms using panel data techniques. We look at a broad sample of countries (the quot;world samplequot;) and also an OECD sample. Our main findings suggest that adopting a fixed exchange rate...

It is widely assumed that a common currency makes it desirable to have also a common fiscal policy. However, if fiscal policy is a source of shocks, independent national fiscal policies are generally preferable because they allow for risk diversification

The financial crisis led to a deep recession in many industrial countries. While large emerging countries recovered relatively quickly from the financial crisis, their performance deteriorated in the last years, despite the modest recovery in advanced economies. The higher divergence of business...

According to the traditional "optimum currency area" approach, not much will be lost from a very hard peg to a currency union if there has been little reason for variations in the exchange rate. This paper takes a different approach, and highlights the fact that high exchange rate volatility may...

The Greek government budget situation plays a central role in the debt crisis in the euro area. The debt to GDP ratio is above 150 percent, while the deficit to GDP ratio exceeds 10 percent. To re-establish the Maastricht criteria, respectively, strong consolidation measures need to be...

This paper tackles the issue of cross-section dependence for the monetary exchange rate model in the presence of unobserved common factors using panel data from 1973 until 2007 for 19 OECD countries. Applying a principal component analysis we distinguish between common factors and idiosyncratic...

The recent extensive package introduced by the Commission is the most comprehensive reinforcement of economic governance in the EU and the euro area since the launch of the Economic and Monetary Union. Broader and enhanced surveillance of fiscal policies, but also macroeconomic policies and...

A non‐linear model is applied, where suddenly strong spurts of exports occur when changes of the exchange rate go beyond a zone of inaction, which we call ‘play’ area - analogous to mechanical play. We implement an algorithm describing path‐dependent play‐hysteresis into a regression...

This paper examines the contemporaneous relationship between the exchange rate regime and structural economic reforms for a sample of CEEC/CIS transition countries. We investigate empirically whether structural reforms are complements or substitutes for monetary commitment in the attempt to...