Title: Ten years EMU: an assessment of ten critical claims

Authors: Amy Verdun

Addresses: Department of Political Science, University of Victoria, P.O. Box 3060, Victoria, BC V8W 3R4, Canada

Abstract: This paper seeks to review a selection of ten salient critical claims about Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) that were heard in the 1990s in either the Political Science literature or the Economics literature or both. In this paper, the author focuses on five salient Political Science claims and five Economics claims prominent at the time that pointed to problems with EMU that could undermine its viability. As we will see, based on an assessment of the first ten years of EMU, almost none of these claims – to date – turned out to be a problem.

Keywords: Economic and Monetary Union; EMU; Euro; European Central Bank; ECB; fiscal policy; monetary policy; optimal currency areas; Stability and Growth Pact; SGP; supranational economic government; welfare state; retrenchment; economics; business research; political science.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEBR.2010.029734

International Journal of Economics and Business Research, 2010 Vol.2 No.1/2, pp.144 - 163

Published online: 01 Dec 2009 *

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