The purpose of this paper is to study whether Sweden or Finland was initially better suited for the euro, and whether Sweden has benefited from remaining outside the third step of the European Monetary Union as opposed to Finland.  The analysis is based on the optimum currency area theory.  The findings show that Sweden initially was better suited for euro adoption than Finland, but the ECB’s monetary policy has suite Finland quite well.  However, Sweden appears to have benefited from remaining outside the euro.

他國低估匯率造成貿易嚴重扭曲問題近年來越發受到重視，而美國國會為解決主要貿易對手國長期壓抑匯率以提升出口競爭力，導致美國貿易赤字不斷上升之問題，遂陸續提出諸多匯率改革相關法案，期望以具體之制裁手段防止他國持續刻意壓低匯率。 本文先以美國現行法案──1988年匯率與國際經濟政策協調法案作為出發點，探討美國現行法案之不足，以點出美國國會為何認為有於後續改革法案中加入制裁手段之必要，並得出2010年公平貿易貨幣改革法案與2011年貨幣匯率監督改革法案此二法案所提倡之將他國根本性匯率低估或匯率失調情形視為可課徵平衡稅之補貼，為國會多數支持之手段。再以經濟學及國際貿易法學之分析連貫後續討論：匯率低估是否等同對進口課徵關稅並對出口提供補貼？2010年公平貿易貨幣改革法案與2011年貨幣匯率監督改革法案欲將他國根本性匯率低估或匯率失調情形視為可課徵平衡稅之補貼，是否符合WTO有關補貼之規範？前者以Staiger及Sykes兩位學者使用之兩國兩財模型作為討論主軸，後者則以補貼三要件──「財務補助」、「受有利益」及「特定性」加以檢驗。最後皆得出匯率低估僅在特定之情況下始可能構成補貼之結論。 惟在研究過程中，本文發現若僅單憑國際貿易法學之角度去解析匯率低估是否構成補貼，將受法律文字之主觀影響而導致某些謬誤產生。為解決此一問題，本文乃提出以經濟學之分析輔佐國際貿易法裁決之建議，以期能提升國際貿易法裁決之客觀性與公平性。 / The serious trade distortion problem caused by currency undervaluation has given rise to more and more attention. The United States also faces the increasing trade deficit problem caused by some major trading partners that manipulate the value of their currencies in relation to the United States dollar to gain export competitive advantage. The U.S. Congress thus brings up many currency exchange rate reform acts, hoping to use the specific sanction policies to prevent other countries from intentionally depressing exchange rates consistently. This article starts from the U.S. currency act in force──Exchange Rates and International Economic Policy Coordination Act of 1988 to discover the insufficiency in order to point out why the U.S. Congress consider it necessary to put the sanction policies in follow-up currency reform acts. We then conclude that the policies that brought up by "Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act (2010)" and "Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011" to deem the "fundamentally undervalued currency" or "misaligned currency" as contervailable subsidies come out in favor of the majority of the U.S. Congress. Follow up we use the analysis of the economies and international trade laws to link the following discussion: is the currency undervaluation equals to import tariffs and export subsidies? Are the policies that deem the "fundamentally undervalued currency" or "misaligned currency" as contervailable subsidies consistent with the WTO’s subsidy regulations? The former one is discussed with the "two countries and two goods model" brought up by Staiger and Sykes while the latter one is examined by three elements: "financial contribution", "benefits" and "specific". The answers are both that the currency undervaluation will be contervailable subsidy in some very specific cases. However, during this research, we find out that if just use the view of international trade laws to analyze whether the currency undervaluation is a contervailable subsidy, we may be affected by the literalism and make mistakes. To solve this problem, we recommend that using the analysis of economies to support the ruling of international trade laws, hoping to increase the objectivity and fairness.

The German Central Bank, or Bundesbank, has since its founding in postwar West Germany been committed to the maintenance of a stable, conservative monetary policy to control the German economy. During moments key in the process of European integration, the bank has worked to delay and reframe the integration process in order to best benefit the German economy. This study examines four such moments, beginning with the collapse of the Bretton Woods system and ending with the Greek bailouts of 2010, to examine the Bundesbank’s influence, both domestically and internationally, in determining the framework of the current European Union and its monetary policy.

(None) Technical Summary of Thesis: The topic of my thesis is currency crisis. Currency crises have been a recurrent feature of the international economy from the invention of paper money. They are not confined to particular economies or specific region. They take place in developed, emerging, and developing countries and are spread all over the globe. Countries that experience currency crises face economic losses that can be huge and disruptive. However, the exacted toll is not only financial and economic, but also human, social, and political. It is clear that the currency crisis is a real threat to financial stability and economic prosperity. The main objective of this thesis is to analyze the determinants of currency crises for twenty OECD countries and South Africa from 1970 through 1998. It systematically examines the role of economic fundamentals and contagion in the origins of currency crises and empirically attempts to identify the channels through which the crises are being transmitted. It also examines the links between the incidence of currency crises and the choice of exchange rate regimes as well as the impact of capital market liberalization policies on the occurrence of currency crises. The first chapter identifies the episodes of currency crisis in our data set. Determining true crisis periods is a vital step in the empirical studies and has direct impact on the reliability of their estimations and the relevant policy implications. We define a period as a crisis episode when the Exchange Market Pressure (EMP) index, which consists of changes in exchange rates, reserves, and interest rates, exceeds a threshold. In order to minimize the concerns regarding the accuracy of identified crisis episodes, we apply extreme value theory, which is a more objective approach compared to other methods. In this chapter, we also select the reference country, which a country’s currency pressure index should be built around, in a more systematic way rather than by arbitrary choice or descriptive reasoning. The second chapter studies the probability of a currency exiting a tranquil state into a crisis state. There is an extensive literature on currency crises that empirically evaluate the roots and causes of the crises. Despite the interesting results of the current empirical literature, only very few of them account for the influence of time on the probability of crises. We use duration models that rigorously incorporate the time factor into the likelihood functions and allow us to investigate how the amount of time that a currency has already spent in the tranquil state affects the stability of a currency. Our findings show that high values of volatility of unemployment rates, inflation rates, contagion factors (which mostly work through trade channels), unemployment rates, real effective exchange rate, trade openness, and size of economy increases the hazard of a crisis. We make use of several robustness checks, including running our models on two different crisis episodes sets that are identified based on monthly and quarterly type spells. The third chapter examines the links between the incidence of currency crises and the choice of exchange rate regimes as well as the impact of capital market liberalization policies on the occurrence of currency crises. As in our previous paper, duration analysis is our methodology to study the probability of a currency crisis occurrence under different exchange rate regimes and capital mobility policies. The third chapter finds that there is a significant link between the choice of exchange rate regime and the incidence of currency crises in our sample. Nevertheless, the results are sensitive to the choice of the de facto exchange rate system. Moreover, in our sample, capital control policies appear to be helpful in preventing low duration currency crises. The results are robust to a wide variety of sample and models checks.

The dissertation aims at broadening our understanding of tax evasion and government spending in developing countries. It comprises three essays. The first essay deals with estimation of tax evasion in a cross-section of developing countries by estimating their underground economies using the currency demand method. By including enforcement parameters of the tax authorities as another factor of tax evasion in the currency demand equation, it presents theory-consistent tax evasion measurement. Our estimation strategy includes the use of the Arellano-Bond dynamic panel data method that is suitable for correcting the endogeneity problem in the currency demand estimation. The study finds substantial underground economy in developing countries, ranging from 2-67 percent of GDP. The second essay is concerned with time series measurement of the underground economy in South Africa using the currency demand method. Unlike other similar studies on South Africa, it gives sufficient attention to the unit root problem that is common in time series analysis of the currency demand method. Using the Error Correction Method (ECM), it investigates the relationship between the tax rate and the currency demand, and presents yearly estimates of the underground economy for the period 1965-2002. The third essay deals with the behavior of government spending in South Africa for the period 1960-2002. Since South Africa went through various political and macroeconomic shocks during this period, we augment measures of these shocks to the standard median voter model to assess the determinants of government spending in South Africa. Using the Error Correction Method (ECM), we investigate the long-run and short-run behavior of government spending. We find that, in addition to the tax share and the income of the median voter, macroeconomic and political shocks were also significant factors in determining government spending in South Africa. This study broadens our understanding of the behavior of government spending in the presence of political and macroeconomic shocks that are common in small open developing economies.

This study investigates the determinants and effects of currency and asset substitution in Turkey using quarterly data from 1987:1 to 2002:4. The empirical results from the application of Johansen procedure to a four-variable system containing currency-asset substitution proxy (M2Y/M2)), real income, real exchange rate, and ratchet effect proxy (past peak values of the depreciation of the real exchange rate) suggest the presence of a single cointegration vector among the variables. The results further suggest the endogeneity of the degree of currency substitution for the parameters of the cointegration vector. According to the theory consistent and data-acceptable long-run relationship between the variables, there is a strong ratchet (hysteresis) effect in currency-asset substitution in Turkey. The study contains also the policy implications of both currency substitution and the ratchet effect arising from real exchange rate change shocks in the Turkish economy.

We use the Garman-Kohlhagen model to compute the hedge and price of a participating forward contract on the US dollar that is written by a Turkish Bank. The algorithm is computed using actual market data and a weekly updated hedge is computed. We note that despite a weekly update and many assumptions made on the volatility and the interest rates the model gives a very reasonable hedge.

This paper looks at the struggles faced by German policymakers in the years following reunification. East Germany struggled with an immediate transformation from a planned economy to a social market economy, while West Germany sent billions of Deutsche Marks to its eastern states. Because of the unequal nature of these two countries, policymakers had to decide on what they would place more emphasis: social benefits for the East or economic protection for the West. The West German state-level, Federal Government and the East German governments struggled in finding multilaterally beneficial policies. This paper looks at the four key issues of reunification: currency conversion, transfer payments, re-privatization, and unemployment. In following the German Basic Law, the policies pursued in terms of these issues tended to place more emphasis on eastern social benefits.

(None) Technical Summary of Thesis: The topic of my thesis is currency crisis. Currency crises have been a recurrent feature of the international economy from the invention of paper money. They are not confined to particular economies or specific region. They take place in developed, emerging, and developing countries and are spread all over the globe. Countries that experience currency crises face economic losses that can be huge and disruptive. However, the exacted toll is not only financial and economic, but also human, social, and political. It is clear that the currency crisis is a real threat to financial stability and economic prosperity. The main objective of this thesis is to analyze the determinants of currency crises for twenty OECD countries and South Africa from 1970 through 1998. It systematically examines the role of economic fundamentals and contagion in the origins of currency crises and empirically attempts to identify the channels through which the crises are being transmitted. It also examines the links between the incidence of currency crises and the choice of exchange rate regimes as well as the impact of capital market liberalization policies on the occurrence of currency crises. The first chapter identifies the episodes of currency crisis in our data set. Determining true crisis periods is a vital step in the empirical studies and has direct impact on the reliability of their estimations and the relevant policy implications. We define a period as a crisis episode when the Exchange Market Pressure (EMP) index, which consists of changes in exchange rates, reserves, and interest rates, exceeds a threshold. In order to minimize the concerns regarding the accuracy of identified crisis episodes, we apply extreme value theory, which is a more objective approach compared to other methods. In this chapter, we also select the reference country, which a country’s currency pressure index should be built around, in a more systematic way rather than by arbitrary choice or descriptive reasoning. The second chapter studies the probability of a currency exiting a tranquil state into a crisis state. There is an extensive literature on currency crises that empirically evaluate the roots and causes of the crises. Despite the interesting results of the current empirical literature, only very few of them account for the influence of time on the probability of crises. We use duration models that rigorously incorporate the time factor into the likelihood functions and allow us to investigate how the amount of time that a currency has already spent in the tranquil state affects the stability of a currency. Our findings show that high values of volatility of unemployment rates, inflation rates, contagion factors (which mostly work through trade channels), unemployment rates, real effective exchange rate, trade openness, and size of economy increases the hazard of a crisis. We make use of several robustness checks, including running our models on two different crisis episodes sets that are identified based on monthly and quarterly type spells. The third chapter examines the links between the incidence of currency crises and the choice of exchange rate regimes as well as the impact of capital market liberalization policies on the occurrence of currency crises. As in our previous paper, duration analysis is our methodology to study the probability of a currency crisis occurrence under different exchange rate regimes and capital mobility policies. The third chapter finds that there is a significant link between the choice of exchange rate regime and the incidence of currency crises in our sample. Nevertheless, the results are sensitive to the choice of the de facto exchange rate system. Moreover, in our sample, capital control policies appear to be helpful in preventing low duration currency crises. The results are robust to a wide variety of sample and models checks.

「人民幣」（RMB）有著相當特殊的背景因素，基於歷史背景不同，經濟體制不同，與西方國家的貨幣（如美元、歐元）發展差異很大；未來人民幣是否可能成為重要的國際儲備貨幣，甚至可能會威脅到美元的世界領導地位？而「離岸中心」（Offshore Financial Center），則是在規劃人民幣國際化過程中，一個相當關鍵的階段，除了可以增加人民幣的交易，也能夠促進人民幣於在岸與離岸市場之間的使用與流通的龐大商機。 本研究首先由貨幣市場的歷史回顧與發展現況進行探討，接著針對人民幣的現行體系、各離岸中心運作模式等逐一分析，藉由分析人民幣離岸中心業務與營運，來了解過去、現在及未來的發展方向，並且對於人民幣離岸中心目前所遇到的問題給予建議。最後針對台灣，探討目前策略定位與未來發展人民幣離岸中心之成功要素。 本研究結論為，以長期來說，根據IMF國際貨幣基金組織的報告指出：人民幣是最有潛力在國際上被廣泛使用的貨幣，基於中國龐大的經濟規模、多元化的貿易結構、總體經濟穩定以及高經濟成長率，而人民幣未來也將會成為主要的國際貨幣。因此，台灣爭取成為人民幣離岸中心，已經是刻不容緩的事，未來更可順勢發展成為國際金融中心。期望本研究能提供給本國與外商金融業者之策略發展，並提出建議供主管機關相關政策制定參考之用。 關鍵字：人民幣、離岸中心、貨幣 / "Renminbi" (RMB) has a very special background, based on the historical matter, the different economic system matter, and that varies greatly in comparison with the Western countries' currencies (such as the US dollar, Euro). Does the RMB likely to become an important international reserve currency in the future? Is it possible that threat to US dollar's leader role in the world? Moreover, the "Offshore Financial Center" is in a very critical stage of internationalization for the RMB, not only to enlarge the volume of RMB transactions, but also to promote the RMB in between the onshore and offshore markets for business and circulation enormous opportunities. In this study, starts from the historical review of currency markets and discuss the present state of development, follows by the current system of the RMB, as well as the operating model of the other offshore financial centers to benchmark, by analyzing the RMB offshore centers' business and operations, to understand in the past, present and future direction of development. To come out the solutions currently given to the problems encountered, and make recommendations for the offshore RMB center. Further to Taiwan, to discuss the current and future development of strategic positioning for the best practice of becoming the offshore RMB financial center. In conclusion, as for the long-term, according to IMF working paper: the RMB holds the most potential to become widely used internationally, due to China's large economic size, diversified trade structure and network, macroeconomic stability, and high growth rates which can be expected that the RMB will become a major international currency. Therefore, the development of offshore RMB financial center is already an urgent matter for Taiwan. The success of it can further become the international financial center in the next step. In the end, we hope this study can provide the great views to local and foreign financial institutions, and make some recommendations of relevant policy to government authority for reference purposes. Keywords: RMB, Renminbi, Offshore Financial Center, Currency