This paper focuses on the interaction of monetary policy and wage formation in economies with strong labour unions. Government and unions are viewed as endogenous utility maximizers, and the macroeconomic consequences of their interaction are explored with the aid of some elements of game...

This paper studies the merits of policy rules with escape clauses, analysing as an example fixed exchange rate systems that allow member countries the freedom to realign in periods of stress. Motivating this example is the debate within the European Monetary System over how quickly to move from...

The paper examines the possible motivations behind the plea for fiscal rules in the Delors Report. We argue that coordination problems arising from aggregate demand spillovers cannot be solved by means of budget rules and that in any case they are not important in Europe. We then discuss the...

The term structure of interest rate differentials is derived in a model of a small open economy with a target-zone exchange rate regime. The target zone is modelled as a regulated Brownian motion. The interest rate differentials are computed as the solution to a parabolic partial differential...

The paper discusses the policy problems involved in replacing several national currencies with a single currency in a monetary union. While these problems are of general interest, the analysis is motivated by the plan for Economic and Monetary Union among the members of the European Community....

A two-country, intertemporal, perfect-foresight model with micro foundations, floating exchange rates, uncovered interest parity, and nominal wage rigidities is formulated. The benchmark case corresponds to unit elasticities of intertemporal and intratemporal substitution in consumption, no...

This paper surveys the economic history of Britain during the interwar years. It contrasts developments in Britain with developments elsewhere in Europe and asks in what respects was British experience distinctive. Successive sections examine the economic consequences of World War I, the...

This paper discuss the merits of an independent "EuroFed" within the context of a tax/seigniorage smoothing model for a monetary union. There is an incentive to use a surprise inflation tax to wipe out the real value of government debt and wage contracts because this allows a cut in...

The discussion of monetary policy in France, which is intended for a chapter in a general handbook on monetary policy that will cover a number of other countries as well, begins with the early postwar period and carries the story up to the present. A separate section analyses the new framework...

This paper fits a gravity model to the trade of 76 market economies. It then applies the model to data on East European economies to estimate what their trading potential might have been, had behaved like market economies in the mid-1980s. At existing levels of national income, the...