Suchergebnisse

Following the adoption of Eurocrisis Law, the European Parliament (EP) has been strongly empowered in the Economic and Monetary Union. It may intervene mostly in three ways: by the means of control mechanisms around Euro summits, during Economic Dialogues and in the framework of the European Parliamentary Week and the Interparliamentary conference on Stability, Economic Coordination and Governance. An analysis of the practice reveals however that thus far this empowerment has remained largely theoretical; The EP could still better exploit the potential of its newly attributed capacities.The reform proposals currently under discussion were found to bear some potential if adequately used, despite being (still) of a soft nature like the ones currently existing.

Die Globalisierung stellt Europa und die Weltwirtschaft vor große Herausforderungen. In den elf Aufsätzen dieser Festschrift werden Aspekte der Globalisierung aus theoretischer, empirischer und wirtschaftspolitischer Sicht analysiert. Die Themen reichen von Außenhandel, Europäische Währungsunion, Schuldenkrise, Fiskalpolitik, Umweltpolitik, Unternehmenspolitik und Ölpreisen bis zur Frage, warum ökonomische Institutionen entstehen und sich wandeln. Der geografische Schwerpunkt der Beiträge ist Europa, aber Lateinamerika, die USA und Japan werden auch berücksichtigt. ; Globalization provides many challenges for the economies of Europe and beyond. The eleven papers in this Festschrift approach economic globalization from a theoretical, empirical, and policy perspective. Issues covered include international trade, the European Monetary Union, debt crises, fiscal policy, environmental policy, corporate policy, economic institutions and oil prices. There is a focus on European economic issues; however, Latin America, USA and Japan are also covered.

Although a key condition for the creation of a monetary union is the
existence of similar structural characteristics that reduce the existence
and incidence of asymmetric shocks, in the case of the Eurozone, most, if
not all, studies have emphasized the existence of sizeable divergences both
in the macroeconomic performances and in the structural elements of the
Eurozone countries. The objective of the paper is to analyse whether the
economic and financial crisis that is affecting the Eurozone since the year
2008 has had any impact of the coherence of the Eurozone, that is, whether
after 2008 the differences in the macroeconomic performance of the euro
counties are declining (convergence) or increasing (divergence).

In the last half-decade the European Monetary Union (EMU) has experienced a growing financial instability culminating with an extended sovereign debt crisis that has hit mostly the peripheral countries. Besides weak macroeconomic fundamentals, contagion phenomena in the government bond market damaged the countries more exposed to the financial stress. In this paper, the author investigates the issue of contagion applying to the financial field an innovative econometric technique, i.e., panel spatial regression. The paper documents: (i) the presence of contagion, in particular among peripheral countries ; (ii) the changes in the magnitude of contagion in the different phases of the debt crisis ; and (iii) the relevance of policy interventions in reducing the contagion effect in the EMU.

The academic and political discussion about which countries met the conditions for joining the Economic and Monetary Union was decisively influenced by the Frankel and Rose (European Economic Review, Vol. 41, Nos 3–5, (1997) pp. 753–760) hypothesis concerning endogenous optimum currency areas (OCA) properties. The answer to their question 'Is EMU more justifiable ex post than ex ante?' was a definite yes in their ex ante analysis. Our ex post examination of the euro's first decade suggests however that the hypothesis does not hold for some countries. This paper utilizes panel data estimation techniques to compute OCA indices that help assess the OCA endogeneity hypothesis and signal current external and fiscal imbalances.

Summary Introduction The crisis which began in 2007 and deepened dramatically in 2008 has exposed deep rifts in the architecture of the European monetary union. Harsh austerity policies which were first imposed on countries in Eastern Europe, and subsequently on the countries in the euro area periphery, are now beginning to be implemented in countries of the European core. The crisis is highlighting the deeply undemocratic construction of the EU, as the Commission assumes ever greater powers to control national budgets, without any serious oversight by the European Parliament. At the same time, the position of the core countries of the North, and in particular Germany, has been strengthened in relation to the countries of the

This paper deals with problems of fiscal consolidation and policy coordination within the European Monetary Union. In the first place, it investigates the potential problems which are caused by cross-country differences in key fiscal parameters and the asymmetric nature of these parameters. In the light of these findings, the pros and cons of policy coordination is evaluated using some alternative multi-country estimates as a point of reference. The empirical results clearly show that policy coordination within the EMU context is difficult because of these large country differences and asymmetries in the transmission mechanisms of fiscal policy. Even so, it is shown that policy coordination clearly pays off.

The real interest parity (RIP) condition states that the
interest rate differential between two economies is equivalent to the
differential between the forward exchange rate and the spot exchange
rate. This study examines the integration of financial markets in the
GCC countries by verifying the validity of RIP in their economies. Using
univariate and different panel unit root tests, we find evidence
supporting the RIP theory, which indicates that the financial markets in
these countries are well integrated and that the adoption of a common
currency would be relatively easy. JEL classification: F21; F36; C23
Keywords: Real Interest Parity, GCC Countries, Panel Unit Root Tests,
Monetary Union

This paper deals with fiscal policy coordination within the European Monetary Union. In the first place, it investigates the potential problems which are caused by cross-country differences in key fiscal parameters and the asymmetric nature of these parameters. In the second section, the pros and cons of policy coordination evaluated using some multi-country estimates as point of reference. The empirical results clearly show that policy coordination within the EMU context is very difficult because of these country differences and asymmetries. Even so, it is shown that policy coordination pays off at least in cases where the countries share the same shocks. Some practical problems of policy coordination and future prospects are also considered in the paper.

International audience ; Most recent cross-country studies on election-motivated fiscal policy assume that the data can be pooled. As various tests suggest that our data for some 70 democratic countries for the period 1970-2007 cannot be pooled, we use the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimator to test whether political budget cycles (PBCs) exist in our sample. We find that fiscal policy is only affected by upcoming elections in the short run. Our results suggest that the occurrence of a PBC is conditional on the level of development and democracy, government transparency, the country's political system, its membership of a monetary union and its degree of political polarization.

В статье анализируется процесс принятия решений о стратегии создания Экономического и валютного союза в ЕС и роли эпистемологического сообщества международных экспертов в разработке концепции ЭВС в конце 1980начале 1990-х гг. Феномен эпистемологического сообщества на примере Комитета Жака Делора рассматривается с позиций международной политической экономии. ; The article deals with the problem of policy-making in the process of creating the Economic and Monetary Union in the EU and the role of the epistemic community of international experts in the development of this idea in the late 1980s early 1990s. The phenomenon of the epistemic community of the Delors Committee is analyzed from the perspective of the International Political Economy.

We find that real interest rates paid on government debt depend significantly upon current and expected future levels of debt, in Europe as in the US. But this result only emerges when we condition on foreign interest rates, illustrating financial international integration. The previously strong effect of debt on US interest rates has been diluted by the addition of 2004-2006 data to the sample, perhaps reflecting the effect of massive purchases of US securities by foreign central banks. Another finding is that the asymmetry in the effect of US interest rates on European interest rates has not disappeared with the coming of European Economic and Monetary Union in 1999, as one might have thought.

We study affiliations for the countries of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) with Germany and the US, using various business cycle measures derived from quarterly real GDP. These measures are Hodrick-Prescott and Baxter-King filtered series and annual growth rates. By using rolling contemporaneous and maximum (over a short lead/lag interval) correlations, we document increasing correlations of EMU countries with Germany, with these typically being largest during the 1990s. We also document a strong leading role for the US in relation to these countries in the period since 1993, thereby correcting the fallacy that the European business cycle was disjoint from the US for most of the 1990s.

Euro notes and coins are now being introduced in 12 countries in Europe, but Sweden is not among them. The decision to keep Sweden out of the EU's Economic and Monetary Union was taken by the Riksdag (Swedish parliament) in December 1997. The aim of this article is to provide some insight into the public debate that led to the Swedish decision and also to describe something of what has happened since. The emphasis is on the economic issues but the political aspects of the matter are also discussed. To a great extent, of course, EMU is a political project. The question of Swedish membership is expected to be the subject of a national referendum in 2003.