Most technocrats argue that creating the euro was a way of forcing the pace of political integration, since monetary union is not possible without political union. We disagree and instead put forward four minimal conditions for the survival of the euro. Political integration in Europe has its...

The joint Intereconomics/CEPS conference focused on income convergence among EU countries and within specific countries like Germany and Italy. I would like to first caution about overinterpreting these results and then look at other divergences within the Eurozone, which I regard as much more...

In these highly uncertain times, flexibility has value.

The topic of the Intereconomics/CEPS conference for which this paper was written was framed as a question: convergence or divergence in the EU? I am prepared to give an unambiguous answer. That answer is yes.

Distinguishing between two different schools of thought that are named after two different universities, Harvard and Berkeley, the article looks at the evolution, past and future, of the international monetary system. While the empirical view holds that the system will remain unipolar and...