Business Cycles And Trade An Analysis Of The Endogenous Optimum Currency Area Criteria In Europe

On the introduction of the euro in 1999, eleven countries gave up independent monetary policy to a common European Central Bank. In making that decision many were concerned whether these countries are structurally and cyclically ready to cope with a one size fits all monetary policy. This study analyses the structural and cyclical properties of European countries of the past 50 years and considers whether prolonged and extended economic integration has brought the European economies together or is dividing them. Some economists consider the Optimum Currency Area criteria to be endogenous, so that economies might eventually meet the OCA criteria ex post joining a single currency, even if they do no ex ante. This study establishes the theoretical foundations of OCA and by using country and regional data, examines the determinants of business cycle synchronicity and the patterns of trade, specialisation and business cycles since 1960, providing a outlook for the future of the euro. This study provides a diverse and comprehensive approach to the endogeneity of OCAs and would be useful for anyone interested in the development of monetary union in Europe.

This book analyses business cycles synchronization in the Euro Area (EA), one of the 3 criteria that define Optimal Currency Areas (OCAs). Even before its launch, economists questioned whether the EA has what it takes to become an OCA. The onset of the sovereign debt crisis in 2010 confirmed the challenges relating to its construction. But did the EA change over time, and what key drivers may be necessary in the future to strengthen the common currency?

A country's suitability for entry into a currency union depends on a number of economic conditions. These include, inter alia, the intensity of trade with other potential members of the currency union, and the extent to which domestic business cycles are correlated with those of the other countries. But international trade patterns and international business cycle correlations are endogenous. This paper develops and investigates the relationship between the two phenomena. Using thirty years of data for twenty industrialized countries, we uncover a strong and striking empirical finding: countries with closer trade links tend to have more tightly correlated business cycles. It follows that countries are more likely to satisfy the criteria for entry into a currency union after taking steps toward economic integration than before.

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject Economics - Finance, grade: 1,7, University of applied sciences, Cologne, course: Economics, language: English, abstract: On the 1st of January 1999, 11 European countries adopted the Euro as their official currency. A new Economic and Monetary Union with more than 300 million citizens was born. Sharing a common currency offers several advantages for countries, firms and citizens like enhanced cross-border trade, a better price transparency or the disappearance of foreign exchange rate risks. However, a Monetary Union also comes with constraints like the loss of exchange rate regime of its members which is an important instrument to fight adverse shocks. In order to minimize economic risks for its members and to foster the economic stability of the future European EMU, the European Union member states agreed to meet the Euro Convergence Criteria as a requirement to adopt the Euro. During the negotiations about the necessary criterion, the theory of Optimal Currency Areas – a theory which has its origin in the Bretton Woods era – was deliberately reincarnated by economists to verify whether or not the Eurozone can become a successful EMU. Until today the (traditional) OCA theory is often used by the literature and also by politicians to evince fundamental flaws of the Eurozone. This assignment investigates the Eurozone in the light of the theory of Optimal Currency Areas. In the first part of this assignment the main contributors to the theory of Optimal Currency Areas are enumerated and its most significant factors are explained. The second part applies the listed factors to the Eurozone in order to determine whether or not a specific criterion is fulfilled by the European EMU. A summary and conclusion complete this essay.

This paper tests an endogeneity hypothesis of optimum currency area (OCA) criteria (Frankel and Rose, 1998) on a cross-section of OECD countries between 1990 and 1999. The findings indicate that convergence of business cycles relates to intra-industry trade, but has no direct relation between business cycles and bilateral trade intensity. As far as intra-industry trade is positively correlated with trade intensities, this result confirms the OCA endogeneity hypothesis. The endogeneity of OCA linkage criteria implies extensive business cycle harmonization between CEECs and EU countries in the medium term. Published in: Contemporary Economic Policy vol. 22, no 1 (2004) pp. 1-12, ISSN 1074-3529.

Some have argued that the endogenous responses to the formation of a currency area are so strong that one need not worry about optimum currency area conditions ex ante. We argue that this is much too strong a conclusion. We draw on a number of recent studies to evaluate the endogeneity experiences of the eurozone in three major areas; trade flows, business cycle synchronisation and structural reforms to improve labour and product market flexibility. Simple before-and-after comparisons are insufficient for analysis of endogeneity. The experiences of non-euro Western European economies suggest that broader trends also had considerable influence on trade and business cycle patterns. While trade rose substantially within the eurozone, it also rose with and among other European economies. We argue that political economy considerations tend to dampen the magnitude of endogeneity efforts on structural reforms and that meeting conditions for entry may be a more powerful mechanism in this than are subsequent endogenous responses. We also discuss a number of areas for further research.

In this study, we used a Bayesian dynamic factor model (BDFM) to examine the share of variance explained by the European and country factors for 59 regions in Eurozone countries in the period of 1992 to 2020. The BDFM output facilitated the construction of a criterion that enables the assessment of the cost of participation in the European Monetary Union, which is directly related to the optimum currency area theory. We found that in the 2005 to 2020 period, Spain was the only economy in which all regions were aligned with the European business cycle. Furthermore, over the examined period, we observed business cycle divergence with 42 regions experiencing a drop in the share of variance explained by the European factor. There is no evidence of convergence into clubs considering that the regions that are most in line with the European cycle experience the greatest drop in synchronization. These results contradict the predictions of "The European Commission View,” but do not provide any strong support for "The Krugman View.”