This is what we’ve all been waiting for – a book that demystifies the European community’s monetary union. Unlike other books, this one provides readers with a practical yet sophisticated grasp of the macroeconomic principles necessary to understand a monetary union. The most important case in point is the Euro area, where policy targets are price stability and full employment. To illustrate all of this there are numerical simulations of monetary policy, fiscal policy, and wage policy.

This book explores the scope and limits of macroeconomic policy in a monetary union. The focus is on pure policies, policy mixes, and policy coordination. The leading protagonists are the union central bank, national governments, and national trade unions. Special emphasis is put on wage shocks and wage restraint. This book develops a series of basic, intermediate, and advanced models. The monetary union is an open economy with high capital mobility. The exchange rate between the monetary union and the rest of the world is floating. The world interest rate can be exogenous or endogenous. The union countries may differ in money demand, consumption, imports, openness, or size. A striking feature is the numerical estimation of policy multipliers. A lot of diagrams serve to illustrate the subject in hand.

This book applies contemporary macroeconomic theory and econometric modelling techniques in order to address policy issues relating to the CFA Franc Zone, a group of francophone African Countries sharing a common currency that is linked to the French Franc / Euro. Within this methodological framework, the author analyses the way in which the monetary institutions of the CFA influence macroeconomic development and policy formation.

The book develops a general framework for the macroeconomic modeling of monetary unions. The starting point of the analysis is the standard two-country Mundell-Fleming model with perfect capital mobility, extended to incorporate the supply side in a context of rigid real wages, and modified so that the money market is common for two countries forming a monetary union. The model is presented in two versions: for a small and a large monetary union, respectively. After solving each model, the authors derive multipliers for monetary, expenditure, supply, and external shocks, both in the short and the long run; a graphical analysis is also provided. Special attention is paid to the crucial distinction between symmetric and asymmetric shocks.

This book focuses on the construction of the economic policies of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and its institutions. It reviews the faltering economic performance of the EMU countries before and after the onset of the financial crisis.

The Eastern Caribbean Economic and Currency Union (OECS/ECCU) is one of four currency unions in the world. As in other parts of the world in the aftermath of the global economic and financial crisis, the region is at a crossroads, facing the major challenges of creating jobs, making growth more inclusive, reforming the banking system, and managing volatility, while grappling with high public debt and persistent low economic growth. Policymakers have the critical task of implementing strong reforms to strengthen the monetary union while also laying the foundation for accelerating growth. This Handbook provides a comprehensive analysis of the key issues in the OECS/ECCU, including its organization and economic and financial sector linkages, and provides policy recommendations to foster economic growth.

This book explores the new economics of monetary union. It carefully discusses the effects of shocks and policies on output and prices. Shocks and policies are country-specific or common. They occur on the demand or supply side. Countries can differ in behavioural functions. Wages can be fixed, flexible, or slow. In addition, fixed wages and flexible wages can coexist. Take for instance fixed wages in Germany and flexible wages in France. Or take fixed wages in Europe and flexible wages in America. A special feature of this book is the numerical estimation of shock and policy multipliers. Further topics are inflation and disinflation. Take for instance inflation in Germany and price stability in France. Then what policy is needed for disinflation in the union? And what will be the dynamic effects on Germany and France?