We provide a parable that can explain why monetary unions have historically been dissolved following political separation. Using a simple model of government finance in a common currency area, it is shown that delegation to an "inflationary" central banker is an optimal policy when countries...

We present a model of endogenous public good provision and group rent-seeking influence e.g. lobbying. Specifically, two groups with different preferences over public good consumption and different sizes engage in rent-seeking activities to influence policymaking in their preferred direction....

This paper is meant to answer the question whether the CMEA countries trade flows have been able to catch up with their trade potential. The gravity equations estimated over a panel of fourteen years show that there is a room for an increase in trade, which could compensate for the huge regional...

In the presence of spillovers, decentralized provision of local public goods may lead to a higher surplus than centralized provision even if localities have identical preferences. Indeed, free-riding costs associated to decentralization may be larger than the costs of lobbying activities under...

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....

In the presence of spillovers, decentralized provision of local public goods may lead to a higher surplus than centralized provision even though localities have identical preferences. Indeed, free-riding costs associated to decentralization can be lower than the costs of rent-seeking and...

We present a model of endogenous public good provision and group rent-seeking influence. Specifically, two groups with different preferences over public policy and different sizes engage in rent-seeking or lobbying activities to influence policymaking in their preferred direction. When there is...

We analyze a centralized system as one in which a political authority finances by general taxation two local public goods each one associated with a particular region. Because individuals in the two regions have different preferences, they engage in rent-seeking activities to influence...

The political imperative is an important driving force behind the dissolution of monetary unions. But economic factors are also likely to play an important role. Using a two-country model of government finance in a common currency area, we suggest that when countries are very heterogeneous in...