Relinquishing Monetary Policy Independence

Tommaso Monacelli

No 483, Boston College Working Papers in Economics from Boston College Department of Economics

Abstract: I study the macroeconomic costs (both in terms of stabilization and welfare) of the relinquishment of monetary policy independence associated with the membership of a currency area. The analysis is framed within a general equilibrium model of the world economy, composed by a large closed Union and a small (either independent or integrated) open economy. In terms of business cycle stabilization, I find that an economy relinquishing its monetary independence may face a potential trade-off between higher instability in real activity and lower instability in inflation. The tightness of this trade-off is found to be inversely related to the degree of cross-country symmetry of the shocks. In terms of welfare, maintaining the monetary stabilization tool proves to be always welfare improving. Finally, a higher degree of openness does not necessarily make a country a better candidate for participating in a currency area.

Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2000-11-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mon
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/wp483.pdf main text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:boc:bocoec:483

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Boston College Working Papers in Economics from Boston College Department of Economics Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill MA 02467 USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F Baum ().