Inhaltsangabe:Zusammenfassung: Währungskrisen, wie die des Europäischen Währungssystems (EWS) 1992, können noch immer nur unzureichend vorausgesagt werden. Es wird jedoch anerkannt, dass die Glaubwürdigkeit eines jeden Währungssystems ausschließlich endogen bestimmt wird, d.h. durch Interaktion der einzelnen Akteure an den Wechselkursmärkten. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht, ob ein bestimmtes Glaubwürdigkeitsmaß, eingeführt von Avesani, Gallo und Salmon (1995), geeignet ist, die große EWS Krise 1992 vorauszusagen. Dabei handelt es sich um ein dynamisches Spiel, in dem die beiden Akteure (Zentralbank und Finanzmarkt) miteinander interagieren und damit die Glaubwürdigkeit des Systems aushandeln . Es wird gezeigt, dass o.g. Glaubwürdigkeitsmaß ein geeigneter Indikator für Währungskrisen darstellt, was empirisch anhand des französischen Francs, der italienischen Lira und des niederländischen Guldens nachgewiesen wird. Introduction: The objective of the present study is to present the literature of exchange rate target zones and to explore empirically the Avesani-Gallo-Salmon credibility measure for selected currencies belonging to the Exchange-Rate Mechanism (ERM) of the European Monetary System (EMS). In the past decade the empirical literature on real world target zones mushroomed considerably, but still, its overall significance in explaining strains in the relevant foreign exchange markets remains relatively low. In this context, I will explore whether the Avesani-Gallo-Salmon (1995) credibility measure demonstrates more power than earlier studies in the analysis of the 1992/3 EMS crisis. It is not my intention to pursue a normative analysis whether flexible or fixed exchange rates or intermediate regimes are superior to one another in terms of their economic implications. This question is beyond the scope of my analysis.1 Given that target zones are applied frequently in the real world, I purely want to figure out, whether their application is sensible on grounds of a firm commitment of the policy-makers. Exchange rate bands have been discussed widely after the breakdown of the Bretton Woods System in 1973. Although experiences with the fixed exchange rate regime were disappointing in the 1960s, increased volatility and/or overshooting of the exchange rates in the 1970s let economists doubt the famous argument by Friedman (1953) that speculation would stabilize exchange rate movements in the floating system. McKinnon (1976) reckoned that [...]

The speculative crises of 1992-93, which shook the EMS, left in their wake a series of questions about the monetary future of Europe, exchange rate behaviour and exchange-rate policy. This book explores these questions from the varying standpoints of econo

This title was first published in 2000: An analysis of the extent to which the outcomes of the process of European monetary integration and, particularly, of the development of the debate over the establishment of EMU, have been influenced by domestic politics and by domestic economic interest groups in Italy and in the United Kingdom. From an empirical point of view, the work provides an account of the development of Italian and British socio-economic interest groups towards the issue of European monetary union from the making of the EMS until the establishment of EMU.

We study the evolution of sectoral employment and labor cost in eleven European countries in the last two decades. Our statistical approach consists on decomposing for country and temporal effects. Virtual economies are construted by filtering country effects. We find that sectoral effects account for more that 80% of the long-run differentials across countries and industries in employment growth, whereas country-specific effects are more important in the analysis of labor cost dynamics. The initial distribution of labor across sectors plays a crucial role in explaining cross-country differences on employment. We pay special attention to Spain, the country that has experienced a higher persistent unemployment rate, and show that this can be the effect of a severe problem of sectoral reallocation, originating form the very high weight of the agricultural employment in 1975. Our study of the virtual economies also provides new evidence about the relative performance of some industries and/or countries, e.g., the poor performance of Belgium, the relatively good performance of Italy, in particular its textile sector, etc.