Suchergebnisse

This policy brief explores a route to remaking the international financial system that would avoid the contradictions inherent in some of the prevailing reform proposals currently under discussion. Senior Scholar Jan Kregel argues that the willingness of central banks to consider electronic currency provides an opening to reconsider a truly innovative reform of the international financial system, and one that is more appropriate to a digital monetary world: John Maynard Keynes's original clearing union proposal. Kregel investigates whether such a clearing system could be built up from an already-existing initiative that has emerged in the private sector. He analyzes the operations of a private, cross-border payment system that could serve as a real-world blueprint for a more politically palatable equivalent of Keynes's international clearing union.

In this PhD. thesis titled "Exchange Rate Regimes and Economic Performances in Sub-Saharan Africa", we carried out analysis to show the relationship between the choice of exchange rate regimes and economic performances in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In order to proceed to comparative analysis, first we breakdown the global sample (SSA) into two, which are the monetary union countries or CFA franc zone countries (ZCFA) and the non-monetary union countries or countries outside CFA franc zone (HZCFA), then we breakdown the sample into four subsample, which are the West Africa Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries, the Central Africa Economic and Monetary Community (CAEMC) countries, the HZCFA countries with fixed exchange rate regimes and the HZCFA countries with flexible exchange rate regimes. Our analysis focuses on the following topics:1. Exchange rate regimes and monetary policies in SSA2. Convergence between WAEMU and CAEMC3. Exchange rate regimes and macroeconomic instabilities in SSA4. Exchange rate regimes, Real exchange rate and its adjustment in SSA5. Exchange rate regimes, macroeconomic instabilities and economic growth in SSAThe empirical results based on topics mentioned above conducted to mixed results depending on our subsamples. Also, they show that the exchange rate regimes have not been well managed in SSA, and that they have been sometimes used as means to hide bad economic results induced by non-effective economic policies and non-effective economic decisions. ; Dans cette thèse de doctorat en sciences économiques, dont le thème est « Régimes de Change et Performances Économiques en Afrique Sub-saharienne », nous avons développé une analyse cherchant à montrer le lien entre le régime de change et les performances économiques des pays en Afrique Sub-Saharienne (ASS). Pour réaliser les analyses comparatives, l'échantillon global, ASS, a d'abord été subdivisé entre les pays de l'union monétaire, dont les pays de la zone CFA (ZCFA), et les pays hors union monétaire ou les pays hors zone CFA (HZCFA), et, il a ensuite été subdivisé entre les pays de l'Union Économique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine (UEMOA), les pays de la Communauté Économique et Monétaire de l'Afrique Centrale (CEMAC), les pays HZCFA avec les régimes de change fixe et les pays HZCFA avec les régimes de change flexible. Notre analyse se concentre sur les thèmes suivants :1. Les régimes de change et les politiques monétaires en ASS2. La convergence entre la zone UEMOA et la zone CEMAC3. Les régimes de change et les instabilités macroéconomiques en ASS4. Les régimes de change, le TCR et son ajustement en ASS5. Les régimes de change, les instabilités macroéconomiques et la croissance économique en ASS.Les études empiriques que nous avons menées sur ces thèmes ont conduit à des résultats très contrastés et variées selon les sous-échantillons. Les résultats montrent que les régimes de change n'ont pas été bien gérés en ASS et qu'ils y ont été utilisés parfois comme des moyens de dissimulation des résultats économiques inefficaces et inefficients causés par les mauvaises politiques et décisions économiques.

The Recovery and Resilience Facility reflects unprecedented solidarity through common financing paired with an innovative governance framework. Member states can access grants and loans through the formulation of National Recovery and Resilience Plans, under a set of conditions that include minimum allocation targets and addressing country-specific recommendations. The analysis evaluates whether the governance of the Recovery and Resilience Facility mitigates one of the longstanding weaknesses of the Economic and Monetary Union architecture: fiscal coordination. Assessing the prevalence of green, digital, and social priorities in the (a) National Recovery and Resilience Plans, (b) the country-specific recommendations, and (c) party manifestos through a quantitative and qualitative text analysis shows some convergence toward supranational preferences, albeit only in the green domain. I provide preliminary evidence at the stage of the formulation of the plans of the effectiveness of the Recovery and Resilience Facility fiscal policy coordination by testing whether recovery agendas in the National Recovery and Resilience Plans reflect EU or national priorities. Deviating from the limited implementation of country-specific recommendations within the European Semester, the analysis indicates the governance of the Recovery and Resilience Facility orients the National Recovery and Resilience Plans toward fostering a green recovery. Findings contribute to the assessment of how pandemic recovery instruments innovate EU fiscal governance and longstanding discussions on the ineffectiveness of fiscal coordination within the Economic and Monetary Union, informing the ongoing debate on the reform of the Stability and Growth Pact and a permanent successor to the Recovery and Resilience Facility.

Determining the optimal level and instruments of fiscal governance in a monetary union of sovereign states is not an easy task. A monetary union needs to have in place a comprehensive framework of fiscal governance, which allows enough flexibility to deal with asymmetric shocks in different member states; discourage fiscal mismanagement, and minimize spillover effects when it happens; provide the means for effective fi scal management over the business cycle; and build the necessary mechanisms to deal with a common external shock. The fiscal governance designed at Maastricht was imbalanced and incomplete. It instituted a decentralized 'individual responsibility' approach, with no effective compliance mechanism and no support facilities for times of economic turbulence. Its weaknesses, revealed by the global financial crisis, contributed to Eurozone's deterioration into a second, debt crisis and a double dip recession. The lack of institutional provisions for dealing with the crisis, turned its handling into a de facto political, and therefore, intergovernmental process where creditor countries, enjoying a highly asymmetrical negotiating advantage, dictated both the terms of the bailout agreements and the provisions of the new fiscal governance. Being essentially a reinforced version of the precrisis framework, the 'reformed' fiscal governance has tried to balance conflicting objectives with little success; it is simultaneously more constraining and more prone to political maneuvering, increasingly complex while leaving more room for variable interpretations, and ultimately it is not more effective than its predecessor. As a result, a short few years after its implementation, the calls for a new reform are multiplying.

The euro crisis shed lights on the nature of alternative adjustment mechanisms in a monetary union characterized by a large heterogeneity. Exchange rate adjustments being impossible, it remains very few efficient alternative mechanisms. At the level of the whole eurozone the euro is close to its equilibrium parity. But the euro is strongly overvalued for Southern European countries, France included, and largely undervalued for Northern European countries, especially Germany. This paper gives a new evaluation of these exchange rate misalignments inside the eurozone, using a FEER approach, and examines the evolution of competitiveness. In a second step, we use a two-country SFC model of a monetary union with endogenous interest rates and Eurobonds issuance. Three main results are found. Firstly, facing a competitiveness loss in southern countries due to exchange rates misalignments, increasing intra-European financing by banks of northern countries or other institutions could contribute to reduce the debt burden and induce a partial recovery but public debt would increase. Secondly, the implementation of Eurobonds as a tool to partially mutualize European sovereign debt would have a rather similar positive impact, but with a public debt limited to 70 percent of GDP. Finally, Eurobonds could also be used to finance large European projects which could impulse a stronger recovery in the entire zone with stabilized current account imbalances. However, the creation of a European institution in charge of the issuance of the Eurobonds would face strong political obstacles.

The euro crisis shed lights on the nature of alternative adjustment mechanisms in a monetary union characterized by a large heterogeneity. Exchange rate adjustments being impossible, it remains very few efficient alternative mechanisms. At the level of the whole eurozone the euro is close to its equilibrium parity. But the euro is strongly overvalued for Southern European countries, France included, and largely undervalued for Northern European countries, especially Germany. This paper gives a new evaluation of these exchange rate misalignments inside the eurozone, using a FEER approach, and examines the evolution of competitiveness. In a second step, we use a two-country SFC model of a monetary union with endogenous interest rates and Eurobonds issuance. Three main results are found. Firstly, facing a competitiveness loss in southern countries due to exchange rates misalignments, increasing intra-European financing by banks of northern countries or other institutions could contribute to reduce the debt burden and induce a partial recovery but public debt would increase. Secondly, the implementation of Eurobonds as a tool to partially mutualize European sovereign debt would have a rather similar positive impact, but with a public debt limited to 70 percent of GDP. Finally, Eurobonds could also be used to finance large European projects which could impulse a stronger recovery in the entire zone with stabilized current account imbalances. However, the creation of a European institution in charge of the issuance of the Eurobonds would face strong political obstacles.

The euro crisis shed lights on the nature of alternative adjustment mechanisms in a monetary union characterized by a large heterogeneity. Exchange rate adjustments being impossible, it remains very few efficient alternative mechanisms. At the level of the whole eurozone the euro is close to its equilibrium parity. But the euro is strongly overvalued for Southern European countries, France included, and largely undervalued for Northern European countries, especially Germany. This paper gives a new evaluation of these exchange rate misalignments inside the eurozone, using a FEER approach, and examines the evolution of competitiveness. In a second step, we use a two-country SFC model of a monetary union with endogenous interest rates and Eurobonds issuance. Three main results are found. Firstly, facing a competitiveness loss in southern countries due to exchange rates misalignments, increasing intra-European financing by banks of northern countries or other institutions could contribute to reduce the debt burden and induce a partial recovery but public debt would increase. Secondly, the implementation of Eurobonds as a tool to partially mutualize European sovereign debt would have a rather similar positive impact, but with a public debt limited to 70 percent of GDP. Finally, Eurobonds could also be used to finance large European projects which could impulse a stronger recovery in the entire zone with stabilized current account imbalances. However, the creation of a European institution in charge of the issuance of the Eurobonds would face strong political obstacles.

The euro crisis shed lights on the nature of alternative adjustment mechanisms in a monetary union characterized by a large heterogeneity. Exchange rate adjustments being impossible, it remains very few efficient alternative mechanisms. At the level of the whole eurozone the euro is close to its equilibrium parity. But the euro is strongly overvalued for Southern European countries, France included, and largely undervalued for Northern European countries, especially Germany. This paper gives a new evaluation of these exchange rate misalignments inside the eurozone, using a FEER approach, and examines the evolution of competitiveness. In a second step, we use a two-country SFC model of a monetary union with endogenous interest rates and Eurobonds issuance. Three main results are found. Firstly, facing a competitiveness loss in southern countries due to exchange rates misalignments, increasing intra-European financing by banks of northern countries or other institutions could contribute to reduce the debt burden and induce a partial recovery but public debt would increase. Secondly, the implementation of Eurobonds as a tool to partially mutualize European sovereign debt would have a rather similar positive impact, but with a public debt limited to 70 percent of GDP. Finally, Eurobonds could also be used to finance large European projects which could impulse a stronger recovery in the entire zone with stabilized current account imbalances. However, the creation of a European institution in charge of the issuance of the Eurobonds would face strong political obstacles.

The euro crisis shed lights on the nature of alternative adjustment mechanisms in a monetary union characterized by a large heterogeneity. Exchange rate adjustments being impossible, it remains very few efficient alternative mechanisms. At the level of the whole eurozone the euro is close to its equilibrium parity. But the euro is strongly overvalued for Southern European countries, France included, and largely undervalued for Northern European countries, especially Germany. This paper gives a new evaluation of these exchange rate misalignments inside the eurozone, using a FEER approach, and examines the evolution of competitiveness. In a second step, we use a two-country SFC model of a monetary union with endogenous interest rates and Eurobonds issuance. Three main results are found. Firstly, facing a competitiveness loss in southern countries due to exchange rates misalignments, increasing intra-European financing by banks of northern countries or other institutions could contribute to reduce the debt burden and induce a partial recovery but public debt would increase. Secondly, the implementation of Eurobonds as a tool to partially mutualize European sovereign debt would have a rather similar positive impact, but with a public debt limited to 70 percent of GDP. Finally, Eurobonds could also be used to finance large European projects which could impulse a stronger recovery in the entire zone with stabilized current account imbalances. However, the creation of a European institution in charge of the issuance of the Eurobonds would face strong political obstacles.

A critical assessment by eminent legal and political science experts in the field, this book examines the two key factors which have deeply affected the position of national parliaments in European integrations: the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty and the sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone. Structured in three parts, the book will address the question, 'Do national parliaments exhibit resilience or resignation in these changed politico-legal and socio-economic circumstances in the EU?' Part I investigates the impact of the aforementioned factors against the theoretical concepts of constitutionalism and democratic legitimacy. Part II evaluates the changing nature of parliamentary functions, and Part III appraises the evolving relationships between national parliaments and national governments, national courts, and EU institutions, in addition to surveying the emerging patterns of interparliamentary cooperation. This interdisciplinary collection yields novel insights into how the deepening of the Economic and Monetary Union and the pursuance of new initiatives for parliamentary action impact the shape and nature of EU democracy --Front flap of book jacket

Europe is still suffering from the turmoil created by the Great Financial Crisis. Finding solutions to the danger of new financial crises is an important criterion for a stable European Union. Proponents of the Sovereign Money System (SMS) identify the ability of private banks to create money as the main contributor to the outbreak of financial crisis. Hence, they want to put the control of the monetary base into the hands of a public institution. This paper will investigate whether the strategy of setting the monetary base - in a SMS - is grounded in realistic assumptions. They claim that the velocity for "real" transactions is stable and therefore, a "workable" link from money base to economic activity can be established. Yet, this claim stands on the shaky assumption that "payment traditions" are unchanging and the dubious concept of "velocity of circulation". Post-Keynesians have criticised the latter, but have not contributed an alternative concept of the relationship between the level of economic activity and the means of payment necessary to achieve it. This, however, would help clarify the critique of a monetary policy strategy, which tries to set the monetary base in the SMS environment, as it would illuminate the specific assumptions that need to hold in order for a link between economic activity and the money supply to be stable. Already in 1957, Stützel tried to establish a relationship - based on balance mechanics - between economic activity and changes in means of payment that was free of the limitations of the equation of exchange. The paper will reformulate Stützel's equation and clarify it with the help of stock-flow consistent Taccounts in order to apply it to the SMS. In doing so, it becomes obvious that the connection between economic activity and changes in means of payment is quite unpredictable. For a stable relationship, a lot of very specific, unrealistic assumptions need to hold. Therefore, the setting of an "optimal" amount of the monetary base in the SMS is, apart from many other of the SMS' problems, not realistic. Stützel's "general quantity equation" provides a clear relationship between money and economic activity that could help the existing endogenous money theory to be more precise in that regard.

Recent events such as the financial and sovereign debt crisis have triggered an increase in European Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU). We use a TVP-FAVAR model with hierarchical priors on the hyperparameters to investigate the effect of EPU on a wide range of macroeconomic variables for eleven European Monetary Union (EMU) countries. First, we find that EPU shocks are transmitted through various channels, such as the real options-, the precautionary savings- and the financial channel. Second, we are able to distinguish between a group of fragile countries (GIIPScountries) and a group of stable countries (northern countries), where the former are more strongly affected by EPU shocks. Third, while the IRFs for most variables differ only in magnitude and not in sign between groups of countries, responses of long term interest rates to EPU shocks have a different sign across countries. Fourth, we discover that investors and traders react more sensitively than consumers to uncertainty. Fifth, we find that EPU shocks affect monetary policy decisions. Sixth, we provide evidence that the transmission of EPU shocks is quite stable over time. Finally, the increase in EPU can partly be explained by the state of the European economy and should therefore be treated as an endogenous variable. ; Jüngste Ereignisse wie die Finanz- und Staatsschuldenkrise in Europa gingen mit einem Anstieg der wirtschaftspolitischen Unsicherheit (EPU) einher. Um die Effekte von EPU auf neun makroökonomische Variablen für elf Länder der Europäischen Währungsunion zu quantifizieren, verwenden wir ein TVP-FAVAR Modell mit hierarchischen Prioren. Unsere Studie zeigt erstens, dass EPU über verschiedene Kanäle, wie dem realen Options-, dem vorsorglichen Spar- und dem Finanzkanal, übertragen wird. Zweitens, basierend auf den Impuls-Antwort-Folgen (IAF) können wir zwischen den GIIPS-Ländern und den nördlichen Ländern unterscheiden, wobei erstgenannte stärker von EPU-Schocks beeinflusst werden. Drittens, während sich die IAF für acht Variablen lediglich in der Stärke und nicht im Vorzeichen unterscheiden, gibt es in jenen der langfristigen Zinsen auf Staatsanleihen Unterschiede im Vorzeichen. Viertens zeigt unsere Studie, dass Investoren stärker auf EPU-Schocks reagieren als Konsumenten. Fünftens, wir zeigen, dass EPU die gemeinsame europäische Geldpolitik beeinflusst. Sechstens liefert unsere Studie empirische Belege dafür, dass der Transmissionsmechanismus von EPU-Schocks über die Zeit konstant ist. Schlussendlich geht aus unserer Studie hervor, dass der Anstieg von EPU teilweise durch die aktuelle wirtschaftliche Lage der europäischen Volkswirtschaften erklärt werden kann, weshalb EPU als endogene Variable behandelt werden sollte.

Introduces a review of the political developments of 28 contemporary democracies for the year 2000, focusing on trends & important, unrelated events. It is argued that the happenings in each country are fundamentally unrelated, with three exceptions. These exceptions focus on European Union expansion, economic monetary union, & the question of whether sanctions should be imposed on Australia. A fourth area of interest is the trend toward declining voter turnout in all countries under study. The introduction also offers data pertaining to the changing composition of cabinets in the 28 democracies & introduces the format for the individual country reports that follow. It also presents data relating to general elections, presidential elections, European elections, changes in upper house, new cabinets, national referenda, & institutional changes for the time period under consideration. 2 Tables. K. Larsen

The paper investigates whether the size of the rental market affects house prices fluctuations or the volatility of construction sector activity over the business cycle. For that purpose we construct a database of variables describing the housing sector in a group of twelve initial euro area members and ten other OECD countries over the years 1995-2014 and conduct a series of panel regressions. We find that a developed rental market attenuates fluctuations in the housing sector, especially for the common currency area sample. We claim that differences among monetary union countries in terms of rental market developments can be destabilizing as they might lead to heterogeneous response to common shocks.

Will EMU accelerate or retard structural reform in labour and product markets? The theoretical literature is ambiguous. New descriptive evidence provided in this paper suggests that euro-area countries have made relatively good progress in structural reform. However, it is much less clear whether progress can be ascribed to EMU membership. To explore further the influence of monetary regime, the paper undertakes an econometric examination of the likelihood that countries undertake reform in five specific areas of labour and product market policies. Based on pooled cross-country/time series Probit regressions covering 21 countries and the period 1985-2003, it is found that structural reform is strengthened by high unemployment, crisis, healthy public finances, reforms in other policy fields and small country size. Further, countries that pursue fixed exchange-rate regimes or participate in monetary union, and therefore have little or no monetary autonomy, appear to undertake less reform – with the effect possibly being concentrated on large countries.