The euro's introduction highlights several shortcomings of cash and coins, and some advantages of paying with plastic, but is hard currency an endangered species, threatened by technologically more advanced means of payments, electronic transfers, e-money and the like? If the last twenty years...

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The problem posed by a potential exit from a political union or federation of states is not a new one. In the current crisis the potential exit from a monetary union is particularly relevant. Not long ago, potential exit has been an important topic in Canada. The analyses of the consequences of...

The US deficit on current account is frequently considered to be a problem of the US. A recently published paper by BATRA and BELADI [1996] is a case in point. By drawing on a revealed preference framework they claim that it might be better for the US to impose trade restrictions in order to...

The current discussion about the future of the financial system draws heavily on a set of theories known as the ‘New Monetary Economics’. The New Monetary Economics predicts that deregulation and financial innovation will lead to a moneyless world. This paper uses a market microstructure...

Rochet and Tirole have derived an elasticity rule for relative prices in two-sided markets. This rule is seen as counterintuitive because it seems to imply that the "more elastic side of the market" is charged more. In this note it is argued that this interpretation is based on the assumption...