The Back Calculation of Nominal Historical Series After the Introduction of the European Cuurency (An Application to the GDP)

Monetary union in Europe raises the problem of converting into euros nominal historical series calculated in the respective national currencies. The aim of this paper is to evaluate alternative conversion procedures, including use of the rates fixed at the strat of Stage Three between the national currencies and the euro, historical market exchange rates series and PPS series. These alternatives are ranked according to the ability of the transformed series to approximate the rates of growth of the original and the real weight of each country's series within the aggregate.