The 1992 Maastricht Treaty, laid the foundations for the current European Union with its single market in goods, services, capital and labour and established the framework for the creation of the single currency. We study countries that differ in the extent to which they share a common currency...

OECD unemployment rates show long swings which dominate shorter business cycle components and these long swings show a range of common patterns. Using a panel of 21 OECD countries 1960-2002, we estimate the common factor that drives unemployment by the first principal component. This factor has...

OECD unemployment rates show long swings which dominate shorter business cycle components and these long swings show a range of common patterns. Using a panel of 21 OECD countries 1960-2002, we estimate the common factor that drives unemployment by the first principal component. This factor has...