This paper tries to assess how costly it would be for the CEECs to peg their exchange rates to the Euro. We use three types of criteria: institutional (the Maastricht criteria); some measure of real convergence; and the Optimal Currency Area criteria. The institutional criteria seem to be an...

This Paper seeks to trace the impact of monetary arrangements on trade integration and business cycle correlation, focusing on Europe in the late 19th century period as a guide for modern debates. For this purpose, we first estimate a gravity model and show that monetary arrangements were...

This Paper asks the question of the impact of institutions on trade and tries to estimate the potential for trade increase between CIS, Central Eastern European countries and the EU. The latter is computed using the gravity equation and the procedure introduced by Hausman and Taylor (1981). It...

This paper estimates the cost of the disintegration of the former Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). It asks whether the reorientation of trade flows towards Western markets has been large enough to compensate for the huge destruction of trade flows between former CMEA countries....

This paper tries to assess whether it would be optimal for the CEECs to form a monetary union with either Germany or the EU. This cannot be done without discussing first the Maastricht criteria, which are the condition « sine qua non » for a country to be eligible. Yet, they are often...

Focusing on a very rich panel of exchange rate regimes in transition countries, this Paper asks the question of the appropriate exchange rate regime for countries aiming at joining the EU, that is, subsequently, the EMU. Four arguments plead in favour of the adoption of a fixed exchange rate...

In this Paper we study, both theoretically and empirically, the relationship between barter and the indebtedness of Russian firms. We build a model in which a firm uses barter to protect its working capital against outside creditors even when barter involves high transaction costs. The main...

This Paper reviews the pros and cons of an early EU enlargement towards Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs hereafter). First, the Maastricht criteria, which cannot be literally assessed during the catching up process, but that nevertheless mirror the huge efforts undertaken in order...

This paper employs cohort technique and Consumer Expenditure Survey data to construct average age-profiles of consumption and income over the working lives of typical households across different education and occupation groups. Using these profiles, we estimate a structural model of optimal...

We offer a duality-based methodology for incorporating multi-sector effects of international trade into open economy macroeconomic models, developing the concepts of the dynamic factor price equalization set and the integrated intertemporal equilibrium. Under this approach, the aggregate...