We investigate the impact of the economic fundamentals, sovereign credit ratings, political uncertainty, and the ECB’s Securities Markets Program (SMP) on Greek sovereign spreads. Our findings show that sovereign downgrades and political uncertainty appear to have been drivers of the sharp...

This paper provides an introduction to the special issue “The Crisis in the Euro Area”. We take stock of what the euro area crisis has taught us about monetary integration. At the inception of the euro area in 1999, the main parameters of the theory of monetary integration seemed to have...

We discuss the origins of the Greek financial crisis as manifested in the growing fiscal and current-account deficits since euro-area entry in 2001. We then provide an investigation of spreads on Greek relative to German long-term government debt. Using monthly data over the period 2000 to 2010,...

A recent contribution to the literature argues that the present international monetary system in many ways operates like the Bretton-Woods system. Asia is the new periphery of the system and pursues an export-led development strategy based on undervalued exchange rates and accumulated foreign...

As part of its monetary policy strategy, the European Central Bank has formulated a reference value for M3 growth. A pre-requisite for the use of a reference value for M3 growth is the existence of a stable demand function for that aggregate. However, a large empirical literature has emerged...

This paper examines the sensitivity of investment to cash flow using a panel of UK firms in manufacturing with a view to shedding some light on the existence of a balance sheet channel or financial accelerator. In addition to examining the impact of cash flow in different subsamples based on...

In this paper we construct Financial Conditions Indices (FCIs) for the euro area, for the period 2003 to 2011, using a wide range of prices, quantities, spreads and survey data, grounded in the theoretical literature. One FCI includes monetary policy variables, while two versions of the FCI...

This paper estimates the magnitude of the Balassa-Samuelson effect for Greece. We calculate the effect directly, using sectoral national accounts data, which permits estimation of total factor productivity (TFP) growth in the tradeables and nontradeables sectors. Our results suggest that it is...

This paper examines questions related to possible capital account liberalisation in the Mediterranean countries. First, we provide an overview of the extent to which these countries have capital controls along with their exchange rate regimes and some basic macroeconomic aggregates. Second, we...

Owing to dissatisfaction with the IMF’s de jure classification of exchange-rate regimes, a substantial literature has emerged presenting de facto classifications of exchange-rate systems and using the latter classifications to compare performances of alternative regimes in terms of key...