Journal of Economic Literature
Book Reviews
2026-08-28
Barry Eichengreen of U of CA, Berkeley reviews “Prospects for Monetary Unions after the Euro” by Paul De Grauwe, Jacques Melitz,. The EconLit Abstract of the reviewed work begins “Eleven papers, originally presented at a CESifo conference held in Venice in July 2003, take stock of the new insights into monetary union that economists have brought since the formation of the European Monetary Union (EMU). Papers discuss the eastward enlargement of the EMU; structural reforms and the enlargement of monetary union; the endogeneity of the optimum currency area criteria and intraindustry trade--implications for EMU enlargement; exchange rate volatility and the decline of employment growth in the CEE economies; the influence of productivity, demand, and regulated prices on the real bilateral exchange rates of four accession countries; the EMU effect on trade--what's in it for the United Kingdom; output smoothing in EMU and OECD and whether we can forgo the government contribution--a risk sharing approach; the implications of a unilateral currency union for macroeconomic volatility; regional currencies versus dollarization--options for Asia and the Americas; an output perspective on a Northeast Asia currency union; and national currency--when monetary unions fall apart. De Grauwe is Professor in the Faculty of Economics and Applied Economics at the Catholic University of Leuven. Melitz is Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Strathclyde. Index.”