Fostering the emergence of a "European identity" was one of the declared goals of the euro adoption. Now, years after the physical introduction of the common currency, we investigate whether there has been an effect on a shared European identity. We use two different datasets in order to assess...

The paper analyses the common European monetary policy based on a Mises-Hayek overinvestment framework, which is combined with the theory of optimum currency areas. It shows how since the turn of the millennium a too expansionary monetary policy contributed to unsustainable overinvestment booms...

We investigate cross-country fiscal policy spillovers through the integration of capital markets in a currency union and allow capital use in production to differ across countries. Following empirical evidence, we assume that production exhibits capital-skill complementarity. Using a...

This paper investigates the (lack of any lasting) impact of John Maynard Keynes’s General Theory on economic policymaking in Germany. The analysis highlights the interplay between economic history and the history of ideas in shaping policymaking in postwar (West) Germany. The paper argues that...

This paper studies export adjustment to negative shocks in currency unions. I consider the hitherto ignored role of trade costs and taxes in internal devaluations, which have been brought to the fore of international policy during the recent euro periphery crisis. Trade costs can limit the...

This paper describes the institutional flaws that led to the euro crisis, assesses the institutional reforms that were put in place during and in the aftermath of the crisis, and evaluates the remaining fragilities of the architecture of the European monetary union. In mid-2017, growth in the...

In this paper we show how interbank market frictions can play an important role in propagating and enhancing the effects of shocks in a currency union, and discuss the efficacy of two unconventional policy measures; multi-period central bank refinance operations and large scale asset purchases....

The optimal currency for a country is an important topic. While it is difficult to identify the best option overall, for all stakeholders and including political considerations, it is easier to answer the more limited question of the title: Which currency is best for business in a small country?...

This dissertation deals with three issues of public debt that emerged during the recent financial and economic crisis in the Eurozone. It first investigates the question whether the interest rates on government bonds in a monetary union are determined by economic fundamentals or market...

What to do when a country experiences a sudden stop in capital inflows and has to adjust externally? Sticky wages make adjustment to an external imbalance more difficult within a monetary union. Periods of high unemployment are usually necessary to achieve the required real depreciation...

We present a two-country model with an enhanced banking sector featuring risky lending and cross-border interbank market frictions. We find that (i) the strength of the financial accelerator, when applied to banks operating under uncertainty in an interbank market, will critically depend on the...

The 'Five Presidents Report' cited in the title acknowledges that an important driver of the European economic crisis has been the faulty original design of the Monetary Union, and that substantial steps are urgently needed towards the creation of truly supranational institutions. Yet,...

Seit Ausbruch der Eurokrise befindet sich die Architektur der Europäischen Währungsunion in einer Dauerreform, die aller Voraussicht nach auch in den nächsten Jahren nicht abgeschlossen sein wird. Trotzdem ist der Euroraum immer noch nicht krisenfest. Besonders die anhaltende...

The desirability of flexible exchange rates is a central tenet in international macroeconomics. We show that, with forward-looking staggered pricing, this result crucially depends on the monetary authority's ability to commit. Under full commitment, flexible exchange rates generally dominate a...

Since revelations of the Greek fiscal deficit in the fall of 2009, the breakup of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has moved from unthinkable to plausible. The debate over the future of the EMU has become increasingly relevant, as numerous efforts to solve the Greek crisis have not been...

This paper assesses the role of labour mobility in the adjustment to asymmetric economic shocks in the EU. After presenting a series of stylised facts of mobility in the EU, it assesses mobility as a channel of economic adjustment by means of a vector autoregression (VAR) analysis in the vein of...

The paper analyses the transmission of global financial shocks to individual member states of the European Monetary Union (EMU), in which monetary policy is delegated to the ECB and financial markets are fully integrated. Using a panel VAR model, we show that the asymmetric effects of global...

We study the potential role of correlated refinancing abilities among di.erent countries for the disruption of government bond markets in a currency union. Following Morris and Shin (2004) we use a global games framework and model the simultaneous investment decision into two assets, which are...

This study inspects if there is greater convergence with Germany amongst the Eurozone founding members and if their relations with the hegemonic economy have been more symmetrical after "euroization". The dimensions explored are those inspired by the optimum currency areas (OCA) framework. To...

Die Unterscheidung zwischen gemeinsamen durch die EZB verantworteten geldpolitischen Maßnahmen des Eurosystems und eigenen, nicht-geldpolitischen Operationen der nationalen Notenbanken der Euro-Mitgliedstaaten stellt eine Besonderheit der Europäischen Währungsunion dar. Das jetzt...

The aim of the 'Five Presidents Report' cited in the title acknowledges that an important driver of the European economic crisis has been the faulty original design of the Monetary Union, and that substantial steps are urgently needed towards the creation of truly supranational institutions. Yet...

This paper studies Ramsey-optimal monetary and fiscal policy in a New Keynesian 2-country open economy framework, which is used to assess how far fiscal policy can substitute for the role of nominal exchange rates within a monetary union. Giving up exchange rate flexibility leads to welfare...

Current European integration very much focusses on harmonisation and convergence. This streamlining goes far beyond what is demanded by economic reasoning and turns out - as the euro crisis has demonstrated - to foster tensions among EU member states instead of promoting a flourishing common...

Innerhalb einer Währungsunion ist eine souveräne nationale Geldpolitik nicht möglich. Solange die einzelnen Länder sich in verschiedenen ökonomischen Situationen befi nden, wirkt sich auch die gemeinsame Geldpolitik unterschiedlich aus. Sind die Länder zu heterogen, kann die gemeinsame...

Without a Lender of Last Resort for government debt, multiple equilibria in bond markets may ensue where default emerges for non-fundamental reasons. The stabilising power of central bank interventions does not build on a real debt depreciation via inflation, but on a swap of bonds and central...

Against the background of the emergence of macroeconomic imbalances within the European Monetary Union (EMU), we investigate in this paper the macroeconomic consequences of cross-border banking in monetary unions such as the euro area. For this purpose, we incorporate in an otherwise standard...

This paper quantifies the welfare differences among a monetary union, flexible exchange rates (economic disintegration) and a monetary plus fiscal transfer union (higher economic integration). The vehicle of analysis is a medium-scale New Keynesian DSGE model consisting of two heterogeneous...

It is well-known that the high synchronization of the business cycles among industrial countries cannot easily be replicated in standard open economy macroeconomic models without assuming that the exogenous shocks hitting these countries are highly correlated. We develop a two-country behavioral...

The euro area will not have a centralised budget and smoothing of country-specific asymmetric shocks via private financial markets will develop only slowly. Mistrust among the governments has caused rigid, even pro-cyclical fiscal policies. Smoothing mechanisms are absent due to the fear that...