In 1999, eleven European countries formed the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU); they abandoned their national currencies and adopted a new common currency, the euro. Several recent papers argue that the introduction of the euro has led (by itself) to a sizable and statistically significant increase in trade between the member countries of EMU. In this paper, we put the trade effect of the euro in historical perspective. We argue that the creation of the EMU was a continuation (or culmination) of a series of previous policy changes that have led over the last five decades to greater economic integration among the countries that now constitute EMU. Using a data set that includes 22 industrial countries from 1948 to 2003, we find strong evidence of a gradual increase in trade intensity between European countries. Once we control for this trend in trade integration, the euro’s impact on trade disappears. Moreover, a significant part of the trend in European trade integration is explained by measurable policy changes.
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Paper provided by CESifo GmbH in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number
CESifo Working Paper No. 1435.
Find related papers by JEL classification: F02 - International Economics - - General - - - International Economic Order; Noneconomic International Organizations;; Economic Integration and Globalization: General F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration F33 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions
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Felix Chan Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli Laurent L. Pauwels, 2006.
"Stability Tests for Heterogeneous Panel Data,"
HEI Working Papers
24-2006, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies, revised Dec 2006.
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