124 Charles Wyplosz A Monetary Union in Asia? Some European Lessons (2008)
Some ten years ago the European Union countries agreed in Maastricht to launch a monetary union. To many, the project was deemed unrealistic and doomed to failure. Yet, it came about, on time and as...
Economic Growth And The Labor Markets: Europe's Challenge (2007)
This paper reviews the accumulated theory and evidence on the sources of European underperformance in terms of economic growth and unemployment. It takes the view that the main problem lies with...
THE NEW EUROSYSTEM Executive Summary (2007)
The voting procedure proposed is both illogical and far too complex. It leaves the Governing Council in charge of decision making, eventually involving 33 persons. Capping the number of voters at...
A Proposal to Introduce the ECU First in the East (2007)
Jeffrey Frankel, Jeffrey Frankel, Senior Fellow, Senior Fellow, Charles Wyplosz, Charles Wyplosz
First problem. Some of the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are sufficiently eager for price stability that they are willing to sacrifice monetary sovereignty, and to tie their...
JEL Classification Number: F31. (2007)
Andrew Rose, Barry Eichengreen, Barry Eichengreen, Andrew K. Rose, Charles Wyplosz, Charles Wyplosz
Speculative attacks tend to be temporally correlated; that is, currency crises appear to pass “contagiously ” from one country to another. The paper provides a survey of the theoretical...
Committee For Economic, Charles Wyplosz
e. Adding asset prices to the price index that serves as the basis for monetary policy is an interesting idea fraught with serious practical difficulties. 1. Asset Price Bubbles: What do They Do?...
European Monetary Union: the Dark Sides of a Major Success (2005)
The adoption of a common currency by 12 European countries has been a fascinating live experiment. Unsurprisingly, it has drawn the attention of economists from all over the world, and continues to...
The Art of Gracefully Exiting a Peg (2003)
Asici, Ahmet, Wyplosz, Charles
The wave of liberalization of capital movements, which swept Europe in the 1980s and the emerging market countries in the 1990s, has given rise to the two-corner strategy. According to this view only...
"Economic growth and the labor markets: Europe's challenge" (2000)
This paper reviews the accumulated theory and evidence on the sources of European underperformance in terms of economic growth and unemployment. It takes the view that the main problem lies with...
One money, many countries: monitoring the European Central Bank (2000)
Persson, Torsten, Favero, Carlo, Freixas, Xavier, Wyplosz, Charles
The real exchange rate in transition economies (1998)
Grafe, Clemens, Wyplosz, Charles
Real exchange rates appear to present a specific behaviour in the early phase of transition: they are largely unaffected by nominal exchange rate movements and exibit trend appreciation. The model...
The real exchange rate in transition economies (1998)
Grafe, Clemens, Wyplosz, Charles
Real exchange rates appear to present a specific behaviour in the early phase of transition: they are largely unaffected by nominal exchange rate movements and exibit trend appreciation. The model...
Eichengreen, Barry, Rose, Andrew K, Wyplosz, Charles
This paper presents an empirical analysis of speculative attacks on pegged exchange rates in 22 countries between 1967 and 1992. We define speculative attacks or crises as large movements in exchange...
Is There a Safe Passage to EMU? Evidence on Capital Controls and a Proposal
Eichengreen, Barry, Rose, Andrew K, Wyplosz, Charles
This paper provides evidence on the effects of capital controls. We show that controls have been associated with significant differences in macroeconomic behaviour, especially in monetary policy....
The Economic Consequences of the Franc Poincare
Barry Eichengreen, Charles Wyplosz
Following the fiscal stabilisation of 1926 and the accompanying return of the French franc to the Gold Standard, France enjoyed several years of fast growth and remained immune to the effects of the...
The Swinging Dollar: Is Europe Out of Step?
The large dollar fluctuations of the last decade are often viewed as a classic example of a lack of macroeconomic coordination. This paper examines these fluctuations from a European perspective and...
The European Monetary Union: An Agnostic Evaluation
The debate about a European Monetary Union (EMU) revolves mainly about two issues: the costs of the loss of a national policy instrument, in the form of stabilization and revenues of seigniorage, and...
Economic growth and the labor markets: Europe's challenge
This paper reviews the accumulated theory and evidence on the sources of European underperformance in terms of economic growth and unemployment. It takes the view that the main problem lies with...
European Monetary Union: the dark sides of a major success
"This paper revisits the debates that have surrounded the launch of a unique experience: the adoption of a common currency among developed countries. A striking aspect of this history is that,...
How Much Information Should Interest Rate-Setting Central Banks Reveal?
Gosselin, Pierre, Gosselin-Lotz, Aileen, Wyplosz, Charles
Morris and Shin (2002) have shown that a central bank may be too transparent if the private sector pays too much attention to its possible imprecise signals simply because they are common knowledge....
A Common Pool Theory of Deficit Bias Correction
Krogstrup, Signe, Wyplosz, Charles
The budget deficit bias is modeled as the result of a domestic common pool problem and of an international externality. Along with Piguvian taxes, a number of policy measures are examined and...
Do we know how low inflation should be?
The paper looks for evidence of grease and sand effects in Europe, in particular the possibility that the natural rate of unemployment is affected run by the inflation rate. Looking at four...
How Much Information should Interest Rate-Setting Central Banks Reveal?
Pierre Gosselin, Aileen Lotz, Charles Wyplosz
Morris and Shin (2002) have shown that a central bank may be too transparent if the private sector pays too much attention to its possible imprecise signals simply because they are common knowledge....
Gross Labour Market Flows in Europe: Some Stylized Facts
Burda, Michael C, Wyplosz, Charles
The purpose of this paper is to establish some stylized facts on gross labor market flows - using mostly new data from France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States - which any theory of...
Price and Trade Effects of Exchange Rate Fluctuations and the Design of Policy Coordinaton
Cohen, Daniel, Wyplosz, Charles
We analyze a two-country zone facing a joint inflationary shock and responding with coordinated and uncoordinated monetary and fiscal policies. We show that the standard presumption that the absence...
How to Exit from Fixed Exchange Rate Regimes
Asici, Ahmet Atil, Ivanova, Nadezhda, Wyplosz, Charles
This paper improves upon the recently developed literature on exits from fixed exchange rate regimes in three ways: 1) It allows for two indicators for post-exit macroeconomic conditions, the change...
Is East Asia Safe from Financial Crises?
This paper looks at the measures taken by East Asian countries since the 1997-8 crisis to reduce the odds of a new crisis. It finds that odds are low, but far from zero. Much progress has been done...
Debt Sustainability Assessment: The IMF Approach and Alternatives
Debt sustainability is an essential attribute of good macroeconomic policies but its precise definition is elusive and its assessment is even more challenging. The IMF has developed a sophisticated...
Exchange Rate Arrangements in Asia: Do They Matter?
We examine the difference that various exchange rate arrangements can make toward stabilizing effective nominal and real exchange rates, with special attention to the Asian experience. It concludes...
Real Exchange Rate Effects of Fiscal Policy
Jeffrey Sachs, Charles Wyplosz
This paper develops a framework for analyzing the effects of fiscal policy on the real exchange rate. The short-run impact of various types of fiscal measures are considered as well as the dynamics...
The Economic Consequences of the Franc Poincare
Barry Eichengreen, Charles Wyplosz
In this paper we reassess the cyclical performance of the French economy in the 1920s, focusing in particular on the period 1926-1931 and on France's resistance to the Great Depression. France...
Barry Eichengreen, Andrew K. Rose, Charles Wyplosz
This paper presents an empirical analysis of speculative attacks on pegged exchange rates in 22 countries between 1967 and 1992. We define speculative attacks or crises as large movements in exchange...
The Art of Gracefully Exiting a Peg
Asici, Ahmet, Wyplosz, Charles
The wave of liberalization of capital movements, which swept Europe in the 1980s and the emerging market countries in the 1990s, has given rise to the two-corner strategy. According to this view only...
The Economic Consequences of the Franc Poincare
Eichengreen, Barry, Wyplosz, Charles
Following the fiscal stabilisation of 1926 and the accompanying return of the French franc to the Gold Standard, France enjoyed several years of fast growth and remained immune to the effects of the...
Eichengreen, Barry, Rose, Andrew K, Wyplosz, Charles
This paper is concerned with the fact that the incidence of speculative attacks tend to be temporally correlated; that is, currency crises appear to pass ‘contagiously’ from one country to...
When Does Capital Account Liberalization Help More Than it Hurts?
Arteta, Carlos, Eichengreen, Barry, Wyplosz, Charles
In this Paper we reconsider the evidence on capital account liberalization and growth. While we find indications of a positive association, the effects vary with time, with how capital account...
Interest Rate Signals and Central Bank Transparency
Gosselin, Pierre, Lotz, Aileen, Wyplosz, Charles
The present paper extends the literature on central bank transparency that relies on information heterogeneity among private agents in four directions. First, it adds the interest rate to the list of...
Fiscal Policy: Institutions vs. Rules
International Economics; Fiscal Policy; Rules; Institutions
Ten years of transformation - macroeconomic lessons
After surveying the facts and distilling the voluminous literature on the transition to market economies, the author arrives at several conclusions: with hindsight, the old debate - Big Bang versus...
Contagious Currency Crises: First Tests.
Eichengreen, Barry, Rose, Andrew, Wyplosz, Charles
The authors address the fact that the incidence of speculative attacks tends to be temporally correlated; that is, currency crises appear to pass 'contagiously' from one country to another. The paper...
EMU: Why and How It Might Happen.
This paper reviews the history, economic rationale, and main components of the project of establishing a monetary union in Europe by 1999. The adoption of a single currency is shown to be the best...
Monetary Union and Fiscal Policy Discipline
The possible emergence of a monetary union in Europe raises a number of new and difficult questions. A central concern is the implication for fiscal policy-making. Fiscal policy assumes an increased...
Post-Reform East and West: Capital Accumulation and the Labor Mobility Constraint
Assuming that economic reforms are successful in Eastern Europe, what will be the effects on Western Europe? The focus is on the wage pressure that the threat of migration from East to West is likely...
A Monetary Union in Asia? Some European Lessons
Charles Wyplosz, David Gruen, John Simon
European Union; monetary union; east Asia; EMU; EMS; Maastricht; exchange rate stability; optimum currency area (OCA); institution
The Swinging Dollar: Is Europe Out of Step?
The large dollar fluctuations of the last decade are often viewed as a classic example of a lack of macroeconomic coordination. This paper examines these fluctuations from a European perspective and...
The European Monetary Union: An Agnostic Evaluation
Cohen, Daniel, Wyplosz, Charles
The debate about a European Monetary Union (EMU) revolves mainly about two issues: the costs of the loss of a national policy instrument, in the form of stabilization and revenues of seigniorage, and...
A Note on the Real Exchange Rate Effect of German Unification
It is often believed that the German Economic and Monetary Unification will result in an appreciation of the DM. This conclusion is reached when attention is exclusively directed to the short-run...
Human Capital, Investment and Migration in an Integrated Europe
Burda, Michael C, Wyplosz, Charles
The short- and longer-term regional consequences of migration for European aggregate supply are examined in a simple model in which human capital enters the production function externally. The...
Labour Mobility and German Integration: Some Vignettes
Burda, Michael C, Wyplosz, Charles
Several alterantive scenarios for the economic integration of East and West Germany are analysed. They all share an amphasis of the rile of migration and labor mobility in this process. The effects...
After the Honeymoon: On the Economics and the Politics of Economic Transformation
This paper focuses on the obvious: Pareto-improving programmes may fail to improve everyone's lot. Politically, it has often been interpreted as a requirement that a majority should benefit from the...
Gross Worker and Job Flows in Europe
Burda, Michael C, Wyplosz, Charles
Despite the impression of Eurosclerosis, labour markets in Europe are in fact quite active. Flows into and out of unemployment are large, countercyclical, and highly coincident in the four European...
French Post-war Growth: From (Indicative) Planning to (Administered) Market
Sicsic, Pierre, Wyplosz, Charles
France's post-war growth has gone through four phases. The strong growth performance of the 1950s was helped by a phenomenon of catch-up on best foreign practices, and by a positive effect of capital...
Equilibrium Real Exchange Rates in Transition
Halpern, László, Wyplosz, Charles
This paper tests two central assumptions regarding transforming economies: that the initial exchange rates were strongly undervalued and that the subsequent evolution of the real exchange rate was...
Relative Prices, Trade and Restructuring in European Industry
Neven, Damien J, Wyplosz, Charles
This paper explores the link between trade and European labour markets by using evidence on relative commodity prices and intra-sectoral skill levels at the NACE three-digit level for the four large...
EMU: Why and How It Might Happen
This paper reviews the history, economic rationale and main components of the project of establishing a monetary union in Europe by 1999. The adoption of a single currency is shown to be the best...
The Real Exchange Rate in Transition Economies
Grafe, Clemens, Wyplosz, Charles
Real exchange rates appear to present a specific behaviour in the early phase of transition: they are largely unaffected by nominal exchange rate movements and exhibit trend appreciation. The model...
This paper explores the unfinished business of preparing for an harmonious monetary union, "more perfect" than the coarse model set up in the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties. To start with, the ECB...
Financial Restraints and Liberalization in Postwar Europe
In the real world of less than perfect markets, balancing the benefits and costs of financial liberalization is usually impossible ex ante. Having been slow to liberalize, postwar Europe offers a...
Ten Years of Transformation: Macroeconomic Lessons
Transition was never going to be easy, even if the long-run outlook is highly promising. Not only was the process itself a major theoretical and policy challenge but, inevitably, politics and...
Do We Know How Low Inflation Should Be?
The Paper looks for evidence of grease and sand effects in Europe, in particular the possibility that the natural rate of unemployment is affected by the inflation rate. Looking at four countries,...
How Risky is Financial Liberalization in the Developing Countries?
This Paper looks at the effect of domestic and external financial liberalization. Using a sample of 27 developing and developed countries, it studies the exchange market pressure and output gap...
Exchange Rate Regimes: Some Lessons from Postwar Europe
Can Europe's post-war experience with fixed exchange rates be useful for today's emerging market countries? A new conventional wisdom suggests that the answer is negative, that in today's world of...
The International Lender of Last Resort: How Large is Large Enough?
Jeanne, Olivier, Wyplosz, Charles
This Paper considers how an international lender of last resort can prevent self-fulfilling banking and currency crises in emerging economies. We compare two different arrangements: one in which the...
Fiscal Policy: Institutions versus Rules
The Paper explores how fiscal policy can be made both more disciplined and more counter-cyclical. It first examines whether the decline of public debts observed in the OECD area during the 1990s can...
Relative Prices, Trade and Restructuring in European Industry
Damien NEVEN., Charles WYPLOSZ
This paper explores the link between trade and European labor markets by using evidence on relative commodity prices and intra-sectoral skill levels at the NACE three digit level for the four large...
Equilibrium Exchange Rates in Transition Economies
Lionel Halpern, Charles Wyplosz
Exchange rates , Transition economies ,
The Real Exchange Rate and the Fiscal Aspects of a Natural Resource Discovery.
Giavazzi, Francesco, Sheen, Jeff R, Wyplosz, Charles
When natural resource income is appropriated by the government, the re arises the issue of the use made of this income. While the "Dutch disease" literature considers the intratemporal allocative...
The Expected Interest Rate Path: Alignment of Expectations vs. Creative Opacity
Pierre Gosselin, Aileen Lotz, Charles Wyplosz
We examine the effects of the release by a central bank of its expected future interest rate in a simple two-period model with heterogeneous information between the central bank and the private...
How to exit from fixed exchange rate regimes?
Ahmet Atil Asici, Nadezhda Ivanova, Charles Wyplosz
This paper improves upon the recently developed literature on exits from fixed exchange rate regimes in three ways: (1) It allows for two indicators for post-exit macroeconomic conditions, the change...
Economic Transformation and Real Exchange Rates in the 2000s: The Balassa-Samuelson Connection
Laszlo Halpern, Charles Wyplosz
This paper discusses the relevance of the Balassa-Samuelson effect for the transition economies since 1990. Their experience is consistent with this hypothesis and the further implications of this...
Barry Eichengreen, Andrew K. Rose, Charles Wyplosz
This paper presents an empirical analysis of speculative attacks on pegged exchange rates in 22 countries between 1967 and 1992. We define speculative attacks or crises as large movements in exchange...
Barry Eichengreen, Andrew K. Rose, Charles Wyplosz
This paper is concerned with the fact that the incidence of speculative attacks tends to be temporally correlated; that is, currency crises appear to pass contagiously from one country to another....
The International Lender of Last Resort: How Large is Large Enough?
Olivier Jeanne, Charles Wyplosz
This paper considers how an international lender of last resort (LOLR) can prevent self-fulfilling banking and currency crises in emerging economies. We compare two different arrangements: one in...
When Does Capital Account Liberalization Help More than It Hurts?
Carlos Arteta, Barry Eichengreen, Charles Wyplosz
In this paper we reconsider the evidence on capital account liberalization and growth. While we find indications of a positive association, the effects vary with time, with how capital account...
Europas Bankenkrise : ein Aufruf zum Handeln
Alberto Alesina, Richard Baldwin, Tito Boeri, Willem Buiter, Francesco Giavazzi, Daniel Gros, ...
HOW RISKY IS FINANCIAL LIBERALIZATION IN THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES?
The G-24 Discussion Paper Series is a collection of research papers prepared under the UNCTAD Project of Technical Support to the Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four on International Monetary...
Economics, Institutions, History and Geography in the Transition Process
This paper provides a comparative analysis of macroeconomic trends in the transition economies over the 1992-2003 period. It also describes some differences between the transition economies and...
Hungary: Towards a Market Economy
Halpern,László, Wyplosz,Charles
Hungary: Towards a Market Economy offers the most recent and up-to-date assessment of the contemporary Hungarian economy, and follows its evolution in the immediate aftermath of the revolutions in...
Exchange rates during the crisis
Weber, Sebastian, Wyplosz, Charles
Nearly two years after the onset of the financial crises, many central banks have brought their policy interest rates down to, or close to zero. Various governments have seen their budget deficits...