It is widely assumed that a common currency makes it desirable to have also a common fiscal policy. However, if fiscal policy is a source of shocks, independent national fiscal policies are generally preferable because they allow for risk diversification. -- Currency union ; fiscal policy...

The purpose of this paper is to assess the implications of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) accession of eight Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) on their share in EMU-12 imports. Overcoming biases related to endogeneity, omitted variables and sample selection, our results...

Monetary policies of the ECB and US Fed can be characterised by "Taylor rules", that is both central banks seem to be setting rates by taking into account the "output gap" and inflation. We also set up and tested Taylor rules which incorporate money growth and the euro-dollar exchange rate,...

Das Handbuch zur deutschen Europapolitik erscheint in Zeiten multipler Krisen und wachsender Skepsis gegenüber der engen Verflechtung Deutschlands mit dem EU-System. Es zeigt, dass europäische Politik von besonderem Wert und Nutzen für die politische und ökonomische Wirklichkeit Deutschlands...

Die Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP) ist Bestandteil des Regelwerks, das am 13. Dezember 2011 als sogenanntes "Sixpack" in Reaktion auf die europäische Finanz- und Schuldenkrise in Kraft trat. Die Krise hat gezeigt, dass interne und externe Ungleichgewichte eng miteinander verwoben sind....

Is secular stagnation a valid concern for Euro Area countries? We tackle this question using the well-established Laubach-Williams model to estimate the unobservable equilibrium real interest rate and compare it to the actual real rate. We apply our approach to twelve Euro Area countries, since...

In this paper a non-linear model is applied, where suddenly strong spurts of exports occur when changes of the exchange rate go beyond a zone of inaction, which we call "play" area - analogous to mechanical play. We implement an algorithm describing path-dependent playhysteresis into a...