This diploma thesis deals with the topic German-French cooperation on crisis management in the eurozone. Germany and France, represented by chancellor Merkel and president Sarkozy, cooperated together very closely during the crisis and contributed significantly to the further deepening of European economic and monetary union. The aim of this thesis is to analyze and compare the features of the German and French European policy and the German and French ideas about the functioning of economic and monetary union. Secondly, to examine the progress of the German- French cooperation on finding crisis solutions. And finally to define convergence and divergence in the crisis management of both countries. Due to different ideas about economic policy - the German ordoliberalism and French concept called Gouvernance économique - both countries were forced to make mutual concessions. The most important compromises within the anti-crisis measures are the bailouts to indebted countries, European rescue funds or tightening budgetary discipline of European countries by using the fiscal pact. Nevertheless, there are still areas in which both countries disagree, primarily the Eurobonds and other measures to support economic growth. The last part is devoted to the question of German models implementation into the EU and the...

År 2011 uppfyllde Estland Maastrichtkriterierna, kraven för att ingå i den Europeiska Monetära Unionen (EMU) och kunde därför ansluta sig till valutaunionen. Enligt teori och tidigare forskning förväntas ett lands ekonomiska tillväxt påverkas positivt av ett medlemskap i en valutaunion.Syftet med denna studie har varit att analysera huruvida Estlands anslutning till EMU genererat en positiv effekt på landets ekonomisk tillväxt. Analysen har genomförts genom en tidsserieanalys där åren 2002–2019 undersökts, nio år innan anslutningen till EMU samt nio år efter anslutningen till EMU.Resultatet visar att dummyvariabeln för EMU inte är signifikant, vilket resulterar i att det inte med säkerhet är möjligt att fastställa effekten på Estlands ekonomiska tillväxt. / In 2011, Estonia fulfilled the Maastricht criteria, the requirements for membership of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and was therefore able to join the monetary cooperation. According to theory and previous research, a country’s economic growth is expected to be positively affected by a membership into a monetary union.The purpose of this study has been to analyze whether Estonia's accession to EMU has generated a positive effect on the country's economic growth. The analysis was carried out through a time series analysis in which the years 2002–2019 was examined, nine years before joining EMU and nine years after joining EMU.The results are showing that the dummy variable for EMU is not significant. As a result of that, it is not possible to determine with certainty the effect on Estonia’s economic growth.

The aim of this work is to analyze the success of European monetary integration and it's contribution to countries, who's economics are, no matter if for the long lasting difficulties or recent transformation, likely to be called hazardous. In the first part, the work concerns itself with the very conception of the idea of European monetary integration and it's development, over the final form of the project, it's accomplishment up till current problem and challenges. The second part is an analysis of chosen countries who belong in the category named above. With this countries I will try to analyze the effect that joining the monetary union had on their economy. In the end I'll summarize the acquired knowledge to evaluate the effect of the common currency on the chosen group of countries.

Dans le contexte de la mondialisation, le projet d’émission d’une monnaie unique en Afrique de l’Ouest, initié par la CEDEAO en 1999, offre aux petites économies de la sous-Région de nouvelles opportunités. Le marché unique accroitrait la taille des marchés domestiques, favoriserait les économies d'échelle, simulerait la profitabilité des investissements et l’accroissement du Produit potentiel des économies. La présente Thèse étudie les implications associées à cette évolution monétaire projetée, dans la perspective des pays de la sous-Région qui conduisent actuellement une politique monétaire et de change autonome. Les résultats montrent que les économies de la CEDEAO ne sont pas synchrones, notamment par rapport à leur cycle de croissance. L’analyse des mésalignements établit que la non-Participation à une union monétaire ne protège pas contre les déséquilibres de change. Une participation de la Gambie, de la Guinée ou de la Sierra-Leone à l’UEMOA aurait été préférable, entre 1994 et 1999. Mais cet avantage se réduit ou disparaît à partir de 2000. Le bien-Être mesuré par la croissance du PIB ou par l’IDH n’est pas affecté par la participation à une zone ou à une union monétaire. Toutefois, une telle participation a un effet vigoureux, positif et significatif sur le bien-Être mesuré par la consommation par habitant. Globalement, malgré la faible synchronisation des économies, la participation à l’union monétaire en Afrique de l’Ouest est associée à un niveau de mésalignement équivalent ou plus faible que celui de la non-Participation, sauf pour le Ghana et le Nigéria. Mais une telle participation pourrait accroître la consommation par habitant. Le projet de monnaie unique de la CEDEAO est donc pertinent pour les économies de la ZMAO. / The context of the globalization suggests that the project of a West African common currency launched by the ECOWAS commission in 1999 is a potential source of opportunities for the small economies of the sub-Region. The common market will increase the scale of their small domestic markets; facilitate the realization of the scale economies; enhance the profitability of the investments and improve the potential product of the economies. Thus, this thesis aims to analyse the effect of that monetary evolution planned for countries following an autonomous monetary and exchange policy in the West African sub-Region. The results show that the economies of the sub-Region are not symmetric, especially because of their growth cycles. The equilibrium exchange rate analyse proves that the non-Participation in the common currency does not shield the West African economies against the exchange rate misalignment for them. Especially a participation of Gambia, Guinea or Sierra-Leone in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) between 1994 and 1999 would have generated a lower exchange rate misalignment for them. But that effect decreases or disappears as for 2000. On another hand, the participation in a common currency or in a monetary area in Sub-Saharian Africa does not affect the welfare measured by growth or HDI. But, both the participation in the monetary area or in the common currency improves the welfare, measured by consumption by head, strongly and significantly. Ultimately the ECOWAS economies are not robustly symmetric. Relative to the misalignment of the exchange rate the non-Participation in the WAEMU is not better, except for Ghana and Nigeria. For all ECOWAS economies, the participation in a common currency or in a monetary area is better for their welfare, measured by the consumption by head. The ECOWAS common currency project is subsequently relevant for monetary union non-Participants economies of the sub-Region.

The purpose of this thesis is to sum up the evolution of monetary policy of the European Union so far and to review the impact of the global financial crisis upon the euro area outlining its future. The other purpose is to analyze the Maastricht convergence criteria fulfillment by the Czech Republic and to sum up if the Czech Republic is or isn't ready to enter the euro area and to adopt the common currency. The first and the second part of the thesis are more descriptive of dealing with the historical evolution of monetary policy from the initial formation in the European Economic Community to the origin of the European Monetary system. The third part brings the reader particular information about the Economic and Monetary union and phases of its foundation. It also brings about the European Central Bank which is the most important institution for monetary policy of the European Union and in the end summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of adopting the common currency. In the fourth part I try to assess the impact of the global financial crisis upon the states of the euro area and mention the view of experts on its future. The last chapter deals with the potencial entry of the Czech Republic to the euro area. That review is based on the analysis of the Maastricht convergence criteria fulfillment.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:48:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Elcio Mitsuhiro Ito.pdf: 840981 bytes, checksum: 47ca5e0b9bbf2d22790cfd1c3800a15e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-12-21 / This research analyzes the development of the financial integration in the euro area, a decisive process for the consolidation of the new common currency and the European Union itself. Since the beginning of the monetary union process, it was assigned to the financial integration the fundamental role for the countries to extract the maximum benefits from the monetary union with the least cost possible. Given the low labor mobility and lack of fiscal coordination within the euro zone, the financial integration received special attention as a mechanism to soften macroeconomic asymmetric shocks via reallocation of resources among segments and companies in the financial markets. Moreover, financial integration allows a more efficient transmission of monetary policies and also allows risk sharing within the monetary union. As a result, new members to the European Union do not necessarily need to wait to have symmetric business cycles before joining the euro. This research presents a selective review of main studies about measuring of financial integration and its current situation in the various segments of the financial markets in the euro area. We conclude that material improvements in the financial integration have been achieved after 10 years of the euro however further challenges are still present mainly in the stock market and retail banking sectors. The recent financial turmoil, which was originated in the U.S. during mid 2007, has resulted in inflexion of the trend in some financial integration indicators but it is still premature to affirm whether this is a trend reversal or a temporary movement / A dissertação analisa o desenvolvimento da integração financeira na área do euro, processo decisivo para a consolidação da nova moeda e da própria União Européia. Prevista desde o início do processo de unificação monetária, foi atribuído à integração financeira papel fundamental para que os países do bloco consigam obter o,máximo de benefícios da união monetária, com o menor custo possível. Diante da baixa mobilidade do mercado de trabalho e das dificuldades para a coordenação políticas fiscais na Europa do euro, a integração financeira ganhou destaque como um caminho para atenuar e suavizar os choques macroeconômicos assimétricos, por meio da realocação de recursos entre setores e empresas nos mercados financeiros. Além disso, a integração do mercado financeiro possibilita a transmissão mais eficiente da política monetária única e permite a diversificação de risco dentro de área monetária. Uma decorrência importante é que novos países da comunidade européia não precisariam esperar necessariamente por uma maior simetria dos ciclos de negócios para se unirem ao euro. A dissertação apresenta uma revisão dos principais referenciais sobre mensuração da integração financeira e seu atual estágio nos diversos segmentos dos mercados da área do euro. Conclui-se que houve avanços importantes na integração financeira em vários mercados ao longo de dez anos, maiores dificuldades para o avanço da integração em alguns deles, em especial o mercado de ações e o mercado bancário de varejo. A recente crise financeira mundial, que se originou nos Estados Unidos em meados de 2007, reverteu a tendência de alguns indicadores de integração financeira, mas é prematuro afirmar se a reversão de tendência se manterá ou se há apenas uma retração temporária

This collection of essays examines the topic of macroeconomic stabilisation in an international context, focusing on monetary policy, capital controls and exchange rates. Chapter 1, written in collaboration with Giancarlo Corsetti and Joao Duarte, reconsiders the effects of common monetary policy shocks across countries in the euro area, using a data-rich factor model and identifying shocks with high-frequency surprises around policy announcements. We show that the degree of heterogeneity in the response to shocks, while being low in financial variables and output, is significant in consumption, consumer prices and macro variables related to the labour and housing markets. Mirroring country-specific institutional and market differences, we find that home ownership rates are significantly correlated with the strength of the housing channel in monetary policy transmission. We document a high dispersion in the response to shocks of house prices and rents and show that, similar to responses in the US, these variables tend to move in different directions. In Chapter 2, I build a two-country, two-good model to examine the welfare effects of capital controls, finding that under certain circumstances, a shut-down in asset trade can be a Pareto improvement. Further, I examine the robustness of the result to parameter changes, explore a wider set of policy instruments and confront computational issues in this class of international macroeconomic models. I document that within an empirically relevant parameter span for the trade elasticity, the gains from capital controls might be significantly larger than suggested by previous contributions. Moreover, I establish that a refined form of capital controls in the shape of taxes and tariffs cannot improve upon the outcome under financial autarky. Finally, results show that the conjunction of pruning methods and endogenous discount factors can remove explosive behaviour from this class of models and restore equilibrating properties. In Chapter 3, I use a panel of 20 emerging market currencies to assess whether a model that combines fundamental and non-fundamental exchange rate forecasting approaches can successfully predict risk premia (i.e. currency excess returns) over the short horizon. In doing so, I aim to overcome three main shortcomings of earlier research: i) Sensitivity to the chosen sample period; ii) seemingly arbitrary selection of explanatory variables that differs from currency to currency; and iii) difficulty in interpreting forecasts beyond the numerical signal. Based on a theoretical model of currency risk premia, I use real exchange rate strength combined with indicators for carry, momentum and economic sentiment to homogeneously forecast risk premia across all 20 currencies in the sample at a monthly frequency. In doing so, the model remains largely agnostic about structural choices, keeping arbitrarily imposed restrictions to a minimum. Results from portfolio construction suggest that returns are significant and robust both across currencies as well as over time, with Sharpe Ratios in out-of-sample tests above 0.7.

The main task of the thesis entitled Differentiation of European Integration Process is historical excursus into the development of the policy of differentiation and flexibility within the European integration member countries. The thesis points out the comparison of the speeches delivered by leading representatives that helped forming theoretical basis of this european policy. The thesis then also characterises the main models of differentiated collaboration and evaluates their present contribution and future utilisation. With help of theoretical foundings the thesis then analyses three particular examples of differentiation in existing European integration process.

The need to improve the economic governance of the EU occurred during the financial crisis when many member states experienced recession. The fact that each member state was influenced differently shows us the two main weaknesses of the EMU: economic heterogeneity of the member states and deep public debt. Existing fiscal rules were proved to be ineffective and unenforceable. The topic of this master thesis is the analysis of the impact of the economic governance reform on the position of the European Commission. The thesis deals only with one aspect of the reform- the budgetary surveillance framework. The thesis explains that this reform was necessary for improving of the EMU and it deals with the impact of this reform on the position of the European Commission. The analysis is based on the comparison of legal acts concerning the budgetary surveillance framework before and after the reform.

The Czech Republic has committed itself to adopt the euro with joining the European union in 2004. Until today there has not been any political interest of setting the specific date of euro adoption due to low public approval. Currently, there is an increase of positive public opinion about euro so it is the right time to start an objective discussion. The thesis is divided into three parts. The First part describes the history and evolution of the European monetary union, Maastricht convergence criteria and the theory of optimal currency area. The second part presents possible economic benefits and costs of joining the monetary union. The third and the main part examines the real effects of euro adoption on sample of selected countries with similar characteristics. The impact of euro on main economic indicators was analysed and there has been carried out a comparison between these countries. Also the role of euro in trade of selected countries has been highlighted. Last but not least, the possible impact of euro on country competitivness has been analysed in the context of optimum currency area theory. It is expected that joining the monetary union leads to a boost of bilateral trade which harmonizes the economic cycles of trade partners. The main purpose of this part is to prove the increase of competitiveness of exporters gained from monetary union measured by the raise of the bilateral trade interconnection. Finally these two criteria - gross domestic product alignment and bilateral trade interconnection have been used to describe the suitability of Czech Republic as a candidate country for the European monetary union.