شوک های عرضه و تقاضا در کشورهای الحاق شده به اتحادیه اقتصادی و پولی

The success of the enlarged Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) depends on the relative incidence of demand and supply shocks in both the participating and the accession countries. This paper addresses the issue using bivariate vector autoregression models for current and would-be EMU member countries. While the degree of symmetry in business cycle shocks among EMU accession countries is significant, idiosyncratic shocks between current and would-be member states dominate. Our results suggest a costly process of adjustment following EMU enlargement. Journal of Comparative Economics32 (2) (2004) 202–211.

The potential benefits of monetary integration are manifold. Monetary unions are expected to have welfare improving allocative effects by boosting international trade and economic growth inside the currency area because of the increased stability of the exchange rate brought about by the increased credibility of the exchange rate regime (Rose, 2000). A currency union also enables the single monetary authority to pursue more effective monetary control because money demand is likely to be more stable in a wider geographic area under open capital markets and full financial liberalization (Bofinger, 1994). While these and other potential benefits may dominate, the costs of a currency union for new members in the form of reduced scope for demand management and diminished capacity to absorb real shocks may also be significant. The literature on optimal currency areas emphasizes that policy independence is crucial if countries face recurrent idiosyncratic disturbances. For example, if member-countries of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) show sizeable asymmetry in the timing of business cycle phases and their exposure to exogenous shocks, these countries may be better off retaining their ability to conduct monetary and exchange rate policies. Consequently, the important empirical issue is whether Europe is a region in which country-specific shocks prevail or whether shocks affect most of these countries in a similar way. Although, this issue has been addressed for Western European economies, systematic research on the degree of business cycle synchronization among incumbent and accession EMU countries is sparse.1 Direct empirical assessment of the costs and benefits of joining a monetary union is difficult; hence we adopt an indirect approach to evaluate the potential adjustment difficulties after EMU enlargement. Our specific objective is to examine the relative incidence of different types of shocks in incumbent versus would-be EMU members. Therefore, we identify both demand and supply shocks over the business cycle in dynamic, quarterly frequency models of inflation and output growth. Then we analyze the degree of asymmetry of these shocks using data from the first quarter of 1993 to the third quarter of 2000. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses briefly the theoretical and empirical background of the data analysis. Section 3 describes the data and introduces the empirical approach concerning the correlation of the shocks. Section 4 presents the results, Section 5 concludes with policy implication.

In addition to the implied benefits, a currency union also involves costs. To shed light on the cost side of EMU enlargement, this paper examines the correlation of supply and demand shocks among three large incumbent and eight would-be EMU economies. We show that shocks among EMU accession and incumbent countries, in particular Germany tend to be uncorrelated. On the one hand, these results may imply that proceeding with the union could be quite costly for the participants. On the other hand, they may simply highlight the importance of non-economic factors in creating viable currency unions. We also find a high degree of concordance in business cycle shocks among the EMU accession countries.