PlumX Metrics
SSRN
Embed PlumX Metrics

How Many Monies? A Genetic Approach to Finding Optimum Currency Areas

NBER Working Paper No. w4805
1994
  • 0
    Citations
  • 1,587
    Usage
  • 0
    Captures
  • 0
    Mentions
  • 0
    Social Media
Metric Options:   Counts1 Year3 Year

Metrics Details

  • Usage
    1,587
    • Abstract Views
      1,512
    • Downloads
      75
  • Ratings
    • Download Rank
      645,100

Paper Description

Recent moves towards greater monetary integration in Western Europe - and disintegration in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union - have rekindled interest in the theoretical and empirical aspects of optimal currency areas (OCA). In this paper, we examine the marginal benefit of increasing the number of currency unions within a given geographical area. We look at six regions; the United States, Europe, the G7, the CFA zone, the FSU and the world at large. Our results suggest that (i) contiguous monetary unions are typically dominated by non-contiguous unions; (ii) neither Europe nor the United States form an optimum currency area, for both regions the costs of adopting a single currency exceeds estimates of the transaction cost savings; (iii) Germany and the United States will almost never find it to their (economic) advantage to join monetary unions.

Bibliographic Details

Provide Feedback

Have ideas for a new metric? Would you like to see something else here?Let us know