This thesis provides new insight into the EMU’s impact on the Euro-area firms’ performance, by examining the firms’ accounting rates of return and financial cash flows. The impact is evaluated separately for the EMU formation and the physical Euro adoption, and over different time horizons. The existing literature does not directly examine these issues. This study uses the regression model of the difference-in-differences approach to examine 121 Euro-area and North American firms, covering 14 sectors, over the period from 1992 to 2008. The results indicate a positive impact of the EMU on the firms’ financial cash flows, especially after the Euro adoption, which support the related literature. However, the accounting rates of return suggest a mostly negative impact. The magnitude of the impacts declines over time. The results are robust with respect to GDP as a control variable. The study also reports the EMU’s impact on 4 major industrial sectors. / viii, 68 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm