The paper discusses the institutional arrangements of a multilateral payments union for the Commonwealth of Independent States. It starts with an analysis of the risks of a non-cooperative solution, which would lead to serious liquidity and solvency problems and thus curtail inter-republican...

According to the traditional 'optimum currency area' approach, the case for adopting a common currency is stronger if the countries are subject to relatively similar output shocks. This Paper takes a different approach and highlights the fact that high exchange rate volatility may as well signal...