Niels Thygesen: An Academic in the Making of European Monetary Union

2021 ◽  
pp. 97-129
Author(s):  
Ivo Maes ◽  
Sabine Péters

Niels Thygesen (born 1934) played for nearly five decades an influential role as a policy orientated academic, especially in the process of economic and monetary integration in Europe. He is especially known as a member of the Delors Committee and as the first Chair of the European Fiscal Board. As part of a re-search program on collecting memories, this paper publishes the results of several interviews with him. His early life offers insightful observations on the develop-ment of the economics profession in the postwar years (he was close to Nobel Prize laureates as Franco Modigliani and Milton Friedman). Thygesen's involvement with the process of European monetary integration really started in 1974 with his membership of the Marjolin Committee (which provided an assessment of the failure of the 1970 Werner Report). Since then he has been involved in a multitude of committees and initiatives, like the OPTICA groups, the All Saints Day Manifes-to, the Committee for Monetary Union in Europe (an initiative of Giscard and Schmidt) and the Euro50 Group.

Author(s):  
Ihor Soroka

The question of whether or not to adopt the euro is a very important one, not only for the 13 European Union members that do not share the same currency, but also for future EU candidates. Current literature on the effect of the euro on trade is scarce since the European Monetary Union (EMU) was officially created in 1999, and up until recently there has not been enough data to analyze this issue. This paper aims to estimate the effect of the euro on trade between member countries using the standard gravity model of trade. Using data from current 25 EU members over the period from 1997 to 2004, I show that higher trade volumes between EMU members cannot be attributed to the adoption of the euro. I find evidence that the euro adoption has had a short-run effect on bilateral trade and that this effect is eliminated over a short period of time. My findings suggest that members of the EMU trade on average from 8.8% to 47% more compared to non-members depending on the type of regression used, while members of the Free Trade Agreement trade 61.3% more. The effect of the euro on trade is eliminated as soon as I control for country-pair specific effects that include the FTA effect as well as history of trade relations between two countries. I conclude that the adoption of the euro should be seen as a final step in the European economic and monetary integration for countries that already benefit from relatively high volumes of bilateral trade. Full text availale at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v2i1.166


2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunther Schnabl

Abstract The paper scrutinizes the role of diverging fiscal policy stances for diverging current account positions in Europe with a focus on the European Monetary Union (EMU). In a heterogeneous monetary union fiscal policy has the task to absorb asymmetric shocks to ensure the efficacy of the one-size monetary policy. It is argued that since the early years of the European Monetary Union divergent fiscal policies combined with monetary expansion constituted a major determinant of current account divergence within the euro area, which finally led into the European debt and financial crisis. Panel regressions reveal a significant impact of fiscal policies on current account positions, which to a large extent are independent from the exchange rate regime and turn out to be contingent on monetary and fiscal policy mix. Based on the findings economic policy recommendations are presented.


2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ihor Soroka

The question of whether or not to adopt the euro is a very important one, not only for the 13 European Union members that do not share the same currency, but also for future EU candidates. Current literature on the effect of the euro on trade is scarce since the European Monetary Union (EMU) was officially created in 1999, and up until recently there has not been enough data to analyze this issue. This paper aims to estimate the effect of the euro on trade between member countries using the standard gravity model of trade. Using data from current 25 EU members over the period from 1997 to 2004, I show that higher trade volumes between EMU members cannot be attributed to the adoption of the euro. I find evidence that the euro adoption has had a short-run effect on bilateral trade and that this effect is eliminated over a short period of time. My findings suggest that members of the EMU trade on average from 8.8% to 47% more compared to non-members depending on the type of regression used, while members of the Free Trade Agreement trade 61.3% more. The effect of the euro on trade is eliminated as soon as I control for country-pair specific effects that include the FTA effect as well as history of trade relations between two countries. I conclude that the adoption of the euro should be seen as a final step in the European economic and monetary integration for countries that already benefit from relatively high volumes of bilateral trade.


2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (18) ◽  
pp. 337
Author(s):  
Бранка Топић-Павковић

Резиме: Идеја о формирању Европске монетарне уније (ЕМУ) произашла је из чињенице да монетарно интегрисање има значајне економске предности код снижавања трансакционих трошкова, веће транспарентности цијена и монетарну стабилност. Теорија оптималног валутног подручјa истиче позитивну везу високог степена конвергенције и постизања користи од интегрисања и вођења заједничке политике за земље чланице монетарне уније Мастрихтски критеријуми конвергенције подразумијевају да земља која улази у ЕМУ има релативно ниску инфлацију, стабилну валуту, низак ниво буџетског дефицита, одржив јавни дуг, као и релативно ниске каматне стопе. Прије стицања позиције кандидата за приступ у ЕМУ, Босна и Херцеговина мора постати чланом ЕУ, и испунити критеријуме за чланство који се односе на политичке, економске, административне и правосудне институције. Будући да су Мастрихтски критеријуми конвергенције прецизније дефинисани од осталих критеријума, у економској литератури често се користе као показатељ спремности земаља кандидата за приступ Е(М)У. Поред сагледавања теоријских и емпиријских сазнања о условима монетарног интегрисања, циљ овог рада је да, на основу компаративне анализе остварених економских перформанси БиХ и земаља региона, оцијенимо остварену конвергенцију и степен приближавања БиХ критеријумима конвергенције из Мастрихта. Резултати истраживања сугеришу да је за БиХ, након уласка у ЕУ, рационално рјешење постепен процес монетарне интеграције, који уз стабилну монетарну политику подразумијева ефикасно управљање јавним финансијама и опрезно управљање јавним дугом. Дугорочни циљ БиХ огледа се у достизању реалне конвергенције кроз повећање продуктивности и конкурентности.Summary: The idea of forming the European Monetary Union (EMU) derives from the fact that monetary integration has considerable economic advantages in lower transaction costs, greater price transparency and monetary stability. Аccording to the optimum currency area (OCA) theory, it is very important for member states to achieve high level of convergence in order to exploit advantages of integrating and conducting a common policy. Maastricht convergence criteria imply that a country that enters the European Monetary Union (EMU) has a relatively low inflation, a stable currency, low budget deficits, relatively low interest rates and sustainable public debt. Before gaining the position of candidates for EMU, Bosnia and Herzegovina has to become a member of the EU and to achieve the criteria for membership related to the development of political, economic, administrative and judicial institutions. Since the Maastricht convergence criteria are more precise than other criteria, in the economic literature are often used as an indicators of the readiness of the candidate countries to access the E(M)U. In addition to consideration of theoretical and empirical knowledge about the monetary integration, the main goal of this paper is to, using the comparative analysis of actual economic performance of BiH and the region, provides us with knowledge and assessment of BiH stage of compliance with the Maastricht convergence criteria. The results show that a rational solution for BiH, after joining the EU, is based on gradual process of monetary integration, with stable monetary policy, effective management of public finances and careful management of public debt. The long-term goal of BiH lies in achieving real convergence through increased productivity and competitiveness.


1996 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Rübel

AbstractDue to both several criteria for participating in a European Monetary Union and a fixed schedule the process of monetary integration in Europe is stuck in a dilemma. Watering down these conditions would cause problems concerning both stability and acceptance, whereas giving up the time schedule could postpone the project of a European Monetary Union into the unknown future. However, if the monetary union only starts with a few countries, a multi class society will be the result. Due to several reasons this raises the danger of division and of the end of the whole process of European integration. As a solution to this dilemma a parallel integration into currency blocs is proposed. With an optimal number of these “Euro”-blocs it would be possible to benefit from monetary integration without having to give up the stabilizing effects of different currencies.


2020 ◽  
pp. 102452942096473
Author(s):  
Victoria B-G Stadheim

The euro has been at the heart of the debate about the crisis in the Eurozone. For some, it represents a fixed exchange rate regime, which hampered peripheral countries’ competitiveness, and for others, the European Monetary Union has a ‘flawed institutional design’ and an insufficient degree of integration that engendered the crisis. The present article analyses monetary integration from a materialist perspective. It draws attention to political agency, power and crisis management. The article focuses on the case of Portugal and poses the question of how the country's authorities were compelled to request a rescue package from the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission in 2011. It shows that this decision was triggered by the political agency of a series of players within the world of finance, most notably Portugal’s domestic banks, the independent Bank of Portugal and the European Central Bank. Reflecting their material interconnection through the European monetary system, their agency was highly coordinated. The strategies for crisis management that came to deepen the recession were not the result of insufficient European integration – they rather reflected Portugal’s form of integration within the European Monetary Union at the specific moment of crisis.


2019 ◽  
Vol 239 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 769-795
Author(s):  
Ralf Fendel ◽  
Michael Frenkel

AbstractThis comparative study looks at broad economic developments during the 20 years of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and 20 years of the European Monetary System (EMS). We analyze the economic performance by looking at a set of macroeconomic variables. The analysis of macroeconomic performance includes two perspectives: one is internal, i. e. how did the countries perform relative to each other; the other is external, i. e. how did the group of member countries perform vis-à-vis other countries. Overall, the analysis of the two periods suggest that the EMU does not display a macroeconomic development inferior to the EMS period. On the contrary, some crucial macroeconomic indicators point to a greater stability during the EMU period compared to the EMS period.


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