Monetary union has dawned in Europe. Now that the common currency is a reality, questions concerning the practical conduct of monetary policy in the European Monetary Union (EMU) are moving to the forefront of the policy debate. Among these, one of the most critical is how the new monetary union will cope with the large heterogeneity of its member economies. Given the large differences in economic and financial structures among the EMU member states, monetary policy is likely to affect different member economies in different ways. Regional Aspects of Monetary Policy in Europe collects the proceedings of an international conference held at the Center for European Integration Studies of the University of Bonn, dedicated to this issue. The contributions to this conference fall into two parts. The first part consists of empirical and theoretical studies of the regional effects of monetary policy in heterogeneous monetary unions. The second part consists of papers analyzing the political economy of monetary policy in a monetary union of heterogeneous regions or member states. The papers all support the conclusion that regional differences in the responses to a common monetary policy will make European monetary policy especially difficult in the years to come. Such differences arise from a variety of sources, and they cannot be expected to be mere teething troubles that will disappear after a while. Even if they were ignored in the run-up to the EMU, Europe's central bankers and economic policy makers will have to learn how to cope with such differences in the future.

The rising star of Spanish economics, Carlos Rodriguez Fuentes, has produced a work of impressive clarity which analyses the effects of regional monetary policy - with particular reference to European Monetary Union.

A comprehensive study of the international coordination of economic policy in a monetary union. It carefully discusses the process of policy competition and the structure of policy cooperation. As to policy competition, the focus is on competition between the union central bank, the German government, and the French government. Similarly, as to policy cooperation, the focus is on cooperation between the union central bank, the German government, and the French government. The key questions are: Does the process of policy competition lead to full employment and price stability? Can these targets be achieved through policy cooperation? And is policy cooperation superior to policy competition? Another important issue is monetary competition / monetary cooperation between Europe and America.

This book is both a reference book on Germany's financial system and a contribution to the economic debate about its status at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In giving a comprehensive account of the many facets of the system, it covers corporate governance, relationship lending, stock market development, investor protection, the venture capital industry, and the accounting system, and reports on monetary transmission and the credit channel, regulation and banking competition, the insurance and investment industry, and mergers and acquisitions. Special chapters at the beginning and at the end of the book adopt the financial system perspective, analysing the mutual fit of different features of the financial system; and each of the fifteen chapters addresses particular myths that surround it. The book is invaluable for those who want to understand the German economy and its financial system, promising not only a compilation of facts and statistics on Germany's financial markets and institutions, but also an analysis of its current structure and the determinants of its future development.

Many believe that Canada's deepening economic integration with the United States and the worldwide trend towards currency blocs will eventually lead to a North American monetary union. In the first detailed analysis of Canadian exchange rate politics, Eric Helleiner challenges this view.

This book studies the causes and cures of inflation in a monetary union. It carefully discusses the effects of money growth and output growth on inflation. The focus is on producer inflation, currency depreciation and consumer inflation. For instance, what determines the rate of consumer inflation in Europe, and what in America? Moreover, what determines the rate of consumer inflation in Germany, and what in France? Further topics are real depreciation, nominal and real interest rates, the growth of nominal wages, the growth of producer real wages, and the growth of consumer real wages. Here productivity growth and labour growth play significant roles. Another important issue is target inflation and required money growth. A special feature of this book is the numerical estimation of shock and policy multipliers.

The visible encroachment of industrial development on the environment, and its unintended consequences, has increased public demand for better environmental management and policy. As policy makers struggle to meet these demands, empirical analysis of the effects of environmental policies is crucial for guiding the development, the implementation, and the evaluation of alternative government interventions and regulatory approaches. Such analysis is scarce, however. The need for empirical studies is particularly large in Europe, where environmental policy debates are still mainly theoretical and tend to reflect different ideological positions more than informed assessments of alternative policies. Empirical Studies of Environmental Policies in Europe presents contributions on empirical environmental policy evaluation. The individual chapters, written by authors from Europe and the US, contain quantitative studies of proposed and implemented environmental policies, at both the micro and macroeconomic levels. The policy issues studied in this volume include the 'double dividend-hypothesis' of carbon taxation, the political economy of en

A systematic analysis of the impact of European Central Bank monetary policy on Eurozone national economies, first published in 2003.

This textbook provides a comprehensive overview of monetary policy, banking supervision and financial stability in the euro area. The author uses his professional experience in central banking to provide a thorough understanding of European economics and to explore how the monetary and financial system functions. The book takes into account the profound changes that resulted from crisis developments in recent years, such as the implementation of quantitative easing or the establishment of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM). The author also invites readers to develop their thoughts on alternative policies to shape the monetary and financial system of the future. The textbook is tailor-made for intermediate courses in economics but will also appeal to those preparing a career in central banking or financial regulation.

The shortcomings of traditional regional policies led to a major policy. Thus, regions have become more active in the design and implementation of policies, following a bottom-up approach and involving the participation of the local community in strategic planning, as opposed to the traditional top-down method. This book addresses regional development theories and policies, with a special focus on forgotten places, and raises emerging questions about recent theoretical advances, as well as trends and challenges in the field. It examines two main and related issues: the crucial role of regional actors for development and the role of Forgotten Spaces. It emphasizes the spatial/territorial approaches from different theoretical perspectives, underlining place-based approaches and compares the experiences of both successful and failed cases, attempting to identify lessons and policy recommendations, as well as adding empirical evidence to this field. The different cases presented, which focus on Forgotten Spaces, allow the reader to assess the role of different actors for regional development as well as some sectoral approaches. While there is a clear focus on European countries with different geographical, institutional and sociocultural characteristics, the book also examines good and bad examples of regional development and policies related to forgotten places from different regions worldwide, including developed and developing countries. The book benefits from contributions from over 20 authors from different nationalities, and a rich diversity of case studies, approaches and methods of discussion. The authors discuss practical examples and more complex theoretical approaches, involving techniques of spatial analysis, spatial econometrics, social networks, content analysis as well as regional planning techniques. The book will appeal to an interdisciplinary audience and will provide academicians, politicians, and policy designers with original and detailed analyses.