Search results

Cover -- Contents -- List of Figures, Tables and Boxes -- Abbreviations -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- 1 History of Economic and Monetary Union -- From the Snake to the EMS -- Launching Monetary Union, 1999-2008 -- Crisis and Aftermath: Reconstructing EMU, 2008-present -- Conclusion -- 2 Monetary Integration -- Evolution EMU 1.0 -- Institutions -- Conclusion -- 3 The European Central Bank -- Institutional Configuration and Legal Mandates -- The ECB's Record -- Conclusion -- 4 Financial Integration and Banking Union -- Evolution -- Institutions -- External Dimension -- Conclusion -- 5 Fiscal Policy Coordination -- Evolution -- Instruments -- Conclusion -- 6 Economic Policy Coordination -- Evolution -- Institutions and Instruments -- Conclusion -- 7 The Euro Outs: A View from the Outside -- Becoming a Euro Insider -- Evolution -- The Euro Outsiders with Opt-outs -- Pre-euro Accession Countries -- Remaining in as an Out -- Conclusion -- 8 EMU and the World -- The Euro as an International Currency -- China and the Euro -- External Representation -- Conclusion -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index.

In monetary unions, monetary policy is typically made by delegates of the member countries. This procedure raises the possibility of strategic delegation—that countries may choose the types of delegates to influence outcomes in their favor. We show that without commitment in monetary policy, strategic delegation arises if and only if three conditions are met: shocks affecting individual countries are not perfectly correlated, risk‐sharing across countries is imperfect, and the Phillips curve is nonlinear. Moreover, inflation rates are inefficiently high. We argue that ways of solving the commitment problem, including the emphasis on price stability in the agreements constituting the European Union, are especially valuable when strategic delegation is a problem.

Is European Monetary Union desirable? Pascal Salin, of the Univeristy of Paris, argues that any system of fixed exchange rates such as the EMS Exchange Rate Mechanism, is likely to prove unsatisfactory.