Established in 1983, the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) is the only European economics research network, linking over 550 academic researchers based in more than 20 countries. CEPR research addresses key European and global policy issues, ranging from global financial crises to international trade policy; from the economic transformation of Central and Eastern Europe to European competition policy. We are the market leaders for research on all aspects of European integration. CEPR research has consistently influenced policy by orienting researchers to address policy-relevant questions, and by encouraging key decision-makers to focus on the results of this research when discussing and formulating policy. The success of this approach has become increasingly apparent in recent years, as both practical examples and explicit acknowledgements from politicians, officials and journalists can testify. The Policy Paper series was launched by CEPR in 1999 to provide a forum for the analysis of important policy issues by leading researchers. The series aims to identify key policy issues; apply the best and most up-to-date research to help understand these issues; and to explore the implications of this research for the design and conduct of policy. Book jacket.

Comprehensive 200-page overview of the ECB from its inception in June 1998 until the present day.

Inflation is regarded by the many as a menace that damages business and can only make life worse for households. Keeping it low depends critically on ensuring that firms and workers expect it to be low. So expectations of inflation are a key influence on national economic welfare. This collection pulls together a galaxy of world experts (including Roy Batchelor, Richard Curtin and Staffan Linden) on inflation expectations to debate different aspects of the issues involved. The main focus of the volume is on likely inflation developments. A number of factors have led practitioners and academic observers of monetary policy to place increasing emphasis recently on inflation expectations. One is the spread of inflation targeting, invented in New Zealand over 15 years ago, but now encompassing many important economies including Brazil, Canada, Israel and Great Britain. Even more significantly, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the United States Federal Bank are the leading members of another group of monetary institutions all considering or implementing moves in the same direction. A second is the large reduction in actual inflation that has been observed in most countries over the past decade or so. These considerations underscore the critical – and largely underrecognized - importance of inflation expectations. They emphasize the importance of the issues, and the great need for a volume that offers a clear, systematic treatment of them. This book, under the steely editorship of Peter Sinclair, should prove very important for policy makers and monetary economists alike.

Leading international economists assess the effects of the 2004 expansion of the European Union. In May 2004 the European Union will undergo the largest expansion in its history when ten countries -- Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia -- become members. The number of new members and their diversity make this "big bang" enlargement particularly challenging. Not only do these countries vary widely in language, culture, and geography, but also their per capita income is less than half that of existing members. EU officials believe that expanded integration will serve the EU's objectives of peace, stability, prosperity, and democracy; but the less abstract questions of costs and benefits of enlargement are more complex. Each of the chapters in this CESifo volume addresses a different aspect of EU expansion. The contributors, all leading international practitioners and scholars, consider such topics as the effect of euro zone expansion on European Central Bank monetary policy making; using the euro as an external anchor for a national currency; worker migration and income differentials; the Swiss experience with immigration policy in a direct democracy framework; detailed sector analysis using a computable general equilibrium model of the world economy; investment and job creation and destruction in incumbent member countries; and the asymmetric effects of enlargement on high- and low-income incumbent countries. Taken together, the chapters provide useful guidance in shaping the EU policies of the future.

This study analyses the allocation of power in the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) as it enlarges to accommodate new members of the economic and monetary union. For this purpose, classical power indices that have their origin in solutions of cooperative games are applied. First, an assessment is made of the effects of enlargement on the voting power of different subgroups of the Governing Council that arise in the wake of the continuous accession process. Second, a systematic comparison is carried out of the status quo role ('one member, one vote') with respect to the voting power of the ECB Executive Board and to the representativeness of European monetary policy, along with the potential for its re-nationalisation.