EMU's design is seriously flawed. Monetary union was established without political union, creating a single eurozone economy that cannot be governed with the combination of macroeconomic policy instruments that modern national governments have. Its exceptionally independent central bank, the...

In 1991, the European Union undertook to form a full-fledged monetary union. It established the European Monetary Union with a European Central Bank (ECB) at its apex and a mandate to pursue price stability. The European regime differs from the US Federal Reserve System, which must pursue high...

The European central bank is a bank of banks but not a bank of states. This reduces the capabilities of member states to finance deficits. The role of the central bank to cope with the debt crises is institutionally more limited than in most other Western countries. The European Stability...

This paper comments on the main challenges stemming from the strong Euro for ECB monetary policy. For this purpose, it starts with a detailed analysis of the current macroeconomic background and the related statements by ECB President Mario Draghi during the three most recent press conferences...

The paper discusses the framework of ERM2 (the exchange rate mechanism of EMU, the Economic and Monetary Union) and its suitability for accession countries / advanced transition economies. It analyzes the exchange rate mechanism from two aspects. First, it considers how ERM2 regulates the...

Traditionally clustered around one leading "hegemonic" world currency, with the introduction of the euro the international monetary regime might become a "symmetric" dipolar system. This fundamental change would come at a time of already considerable uncertainty when, after the Asian, Russian...

Because the European Central Bank's current goal is to achieve stable prices, some EU countries have adopted direct inflation control as a target of financial policy. Several other countries, however, have adopted other targets, such as money supply targeting, exchange rate targeting, and other...

The formation of a monetary union by 11 European countries has received a lot of notice from the press since January 1, 1999, when the union's common currency, the euro, was officially introduced. To facilitate adoption of a single currency, these same countries have established a central bank...