This paper investigates the position of the Phillips curve in a single currency area, when the countries have different levels of unemployment. We will use the aggregation hypothesis to show that allowing for the dispersion of unemployment is essential to quantifying the level of inflation...

The size and economic relevance of Europe may imply a new role for the EURO in the international financial markets. But will the EURO compete with the $US and the Yen for a place in the basket of international currencies? Will that induce a bipolar or indeed tri-polar system, and with what...

The Treaty of Maastricht requires that by 1 January 1999, at the latest, there shall be a nucleus of a monetary union. The issue of monetary union must therefore rest on the presumption that a small ‘credible’ group of countries that fulfils the convergence criteria will be able to adopt a...

This research memorandum presents a chronology of (press) information about important measures, events, adresses, quotations an comments by politicians, banking economists and other financial experts closely involved in the European integration process. Central points in the report are the weak...

Country members of EMU as well as the United States have improved their fiscal positions during the course of the past decade. This article considers the impact of further government debt and deficit reductions in the EMU area. First the literature on government finance establishing the role of...

This paper studies the effects of more than 40 years of European integration on prices. Up to now, most empirical research in this area has been micro-based. We follow a macro approach. On the basis of scaled HICP strong evidence is found for price convergence in Europe, especially in the 1960s...

This survey, which was conducted in September 1998, shows that the degree of acceptance of the Euro has grown to 78% among the public and 94% among businesses. Merely a quarter of the public is aware, however, of the starting year of the EMU, compared to 70% among large enterprises and 40 %...

This paper reviews the rationale for co-ordination of macroeconomic policies in the euro area. It makes clear what co-ordination can do and what it cannot do in European practice. It concludes that with the Pact for Stability and Growth, the framework for co-ordination of fiscal policies has by...

In an earlier study of ours, we provided evidence of consumer price level convergence in Europe, particularly in the 1960s and the 1990s (Faber and Stokman, 2004). The analysis was based on transformations of country HICP indices into absolute price levels, by combining time series HICP data...

A disadvantage of EMU is the lack of national monetary policy to absorb country-specific shocks. The seriousness of this depends on the availability of alternative adjustment mechanisms, as well as on the asymmetry of the demand and supply shocks within EMU. The aim of this paper is to analyse...