Why Did Europe Decide to Move to a Single Currency 25 Years Ago?

Many Europeans today ask why the European Community chose the bold strategy of pursuing an Economic and Monetary Union at a time when a number of political and economic issues had not yet been resolved. Many economists like to think that the economic case for EMU was weak and that the decision was taken strictly on political grounds. As someone who had the privilege of being involved in the early preparatory efforts, I would argue that this is a misreading of history. I believe there was both a strong economic case for moving towards a single currency and a rare political opportunity for implementing it around 1990

Reinforcing Stage Two in the EMU Process.

The paper initially discusses monetary policies in the context of the wide margins introduced on 1 August 1993. The new President of the European Monetary Institute (EMI) has suggested that a number of stringent non-monetary conditions must be met before there can be a return to narrow margins. While this list may be too comprehensive, the paper argues that there are also some monetary prerequisites which will be difficult to meet: at a minimum some mixture of less conditionality in interventions on behalf of creditor central banks and strong incentives for debtor central banks to raise interest rates to defend their currencies. The paper finds a continuation of wide margins for most of the transition realistic. Such a scenario might have certain advantages in relation to the transition to monetary union, provided participants continue to value exchange rate stability highly. In the second part the specific role of the EMI is reviewed. To the extent that the EMI President, the Director-General and other senior members of the staff succeed in taking charge of the work in the Council, The Alternates' Committee and the various writing groups monetary coordination and the preparations for full monetary union should be enhanced. The latter would also be helped if the EMI were to be given some operational functions beyond the passive holding and managing of internaitonal reserves specifically mentioned in the Treaty. An operational role also in domestic money market operations and in clearing in the ecu market appears desirable.

Modelling regional variation of first-time births in Denmark 1980-1994 by an age-period-cohort model

Despite the small size of Denmark, there have traditionally been rather consistent regional differences in fertility rates. We apply the statistical age-period-cohort model to include the effect of these three time-related factors thereby concisely illuminating the regional differences of first-time births in Denmark. From the Fertility of Women and Couples Dataset we obtain data on number of births by nulliparous women by year (1980-1994), age (15-45) and county of residence. We show that the APC-model describes the fertility rates of nulliparous women satisfactorily. To catch the regional variation an interaction parameter between age and county is necessary, which provides a surprisingly good description suggesting that the county-specific age-distributions of first-time fertility rates differ. Our results are in general agreement with the 'moral geography' concepts of Tonboe (2001).age-period-cohort models, Denmark, fertility, fertility rate, nulliparous women, regional variation

Økonomisk og monetær union i EU – motiver og resultater

Motiverne for og indretningen af EU’s økonomiske og monetære union (ØMU) har siden 1970 udviklet sig i et samspil mellem fagøkonomiske perspektiver og politiske præferencer, hvor de sidste synes at have grebet og forstærket nybrud i de første. Med udfordringerne fra Covid-19-pandemien er finanspolitik kommet i forgrunden, og Traktatens arbejdsdeling med pengepolitik er markant ændret

Reinforcing Stage Two in the EMU Process.

The paper initially discusses monetary policies in the context of the wide margins introduced on 1 August 1993. The new President of the European Monetary Institute (EMI) has suggested that a number of stringent non-monetary conditions must be met before there can be a return to narrow margins. While this list may be too comprehensive, the paper argues that there are also some monetary prerequisites which will be difficult to meet: at a minimum some mixture of less conditionality in interventions on behalf of creditor central banks and strong incentives for debtor central banks to raise interest rates to defend their currencies. The paper finds a continuation of wide margins for most of the transition realistic. Such a scenario might have certain advantages in relation to the transition to monetary union, provided participants continue to value exchange rate stability highly. In the second part the specific role of the EMI is reviewed. To the extent that the EMI President, the Director-General and other senior members of the staff succeed in taking charge of the work in the Council, The Alternates' Committee and the various writing groups monetary coordination and the preparations for full monetary union should be enhanced. The latter would also be helped if the EMI were to be given some operational functions beyond the passive holding and managing of internaitonal reserves specifically mentioned in the Treaty. An operational role also in domestic money market operations and in clearing in the ecu market appears desirable

Gaveøkonomi – en vej til ny velfærdsværdi

Som forskeren i offentlig ledelse, Mark Moore, udtrykker det: ”Offentlige ledere er hverken bogholdere eller martyrer. I stedet er de bestilt af samfundet til at eftersøge velfærdsværdi (’public value’)”. I det lys bidrager artiklen med et teoretisk-illustrativt bud på, hvordan en ny og lovende gaveøkonomi kan bidrage væsentligt til vores velfærd i betydningen at ’færdes vel’. Gaveøkonomi er en økonomisk udveksling, der skaber velfærdsværdi gennem relationer, dvs. hvor hver part får adgang til det, som andre giver (gaver), ved selv af give (gengave). Som sådan udgør gaveøkonomien et andet medie for udveksling end penge, som skaber velfærdsværdi gennem adskillelse. Budskabet er, at vi ikke blot skal være opmærksom på, at pengeøkonomiens adskillelsesmaskine faktisk kan stå i vejen for velfærd. Vi skal også være opmærksom på, at gaveøkonomien kan skabe velfærdsværdi, som er pengeøkonomien overlegen