演講者簡介 : Professor Picard received his Ph.D. in Management Science and Economics from University of Louvain in 1998. He is currently a Professor in Microeconomics at University of Luxembourg. His research includes theoretical works about the following issues: privatization, information technologies, spatial interactions and city formation, firms agglomeration, international trade, fiscal federalism, etc.
演講摘要 : This presentation will discuss the relationship between the formation of a currency area and the use of voluntary fiscal transfers between countries. We show that there is a trade-off between the benefits of flexible exchange rates and the additional risk sharing benefits of voluntary transfers that can be sustained in a currency area. We show that whether a currency area is beneficial or not will depend on the magnitude of economic parameter values. In particular, we show that in a simple two country model and for a plausible set of economic parameter values, a currency area is optimal.
