UEM: valutando l’impatto dell’euro

On 1 January 1999, the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has entered its final stage and the euro was introduced as the single currency of eleven European Union countries. The feature certainly peculiar economic and monetary union (EMU) is that in the face of a single monetary policy set at the level of the euro area as a whole and completely aimed at achieving price stability, fiscal policy remains under the direct responsibility of the individual member states and therefore inevitably fragmented (Schilirò, 2002). This paper is an analysis of the volume edited by Richard Baldwin, Giuseppe Bertola, Paul Seabright EMU: Assessing the impact of the euro. This volume contains eight essays that use the data after 1999 to provide an initial assessment of how the euro is actually affecting trade, financial markets, macroeconomic policy decisions and economic performance of Europe.