With the outbreak of the Greek financial crisis in late 2009, spreads on Greek (and other) sovereigns reached unprecedented levels. Using a panel data of euro-area countries, we test whether the markets treated all euro-area countries in an equal manner over the period 1998:m1 to 2012:m6. An F...

An important question for the future of European Monetary Union is whether the central banks of the European member states are fundamentally similar or are there real differences between them. Much casual evidence seems to suggest that the Bundesbank is fundamentally different in its method of...