Real Convergence Across the Euro Area

Relative House Price Dynamics across Euro Area and Us Cities Convergence or Divergence?

Institutional diversity in the Euro area : any evidence of convergence ?

The institutional characteristics of the 19 Euro countries, such as Government efficiency or undue influence or corporate ethics, have diverged in the period 2006-2015. This endangers the sustainability of the EMU, as institutional characteristics are an important element of competitiveness. We find that the overall inequality in the state of institutions across the EMU, as measured by the Gini...

Business Cycle Synchronization Across the Euro Area: a Wavelet Analysis∗

We use wavelets, cross-wavelets, wavelet-phase analysis, wavelet-clustering and multidimensional mapping to study business cycle synchronization across countries that are part of the Euro12 Area. Based on the wavelet spectra, we propose a metric to measure business cycle disynchronicity. We identify Germany, France, Spain, Austria and the Benelux countries as the core of the Euroland and anothe...

Has the Euro Era Facilitated Inflation Convergence?

This paper investigates the long-run convergence of national inflation rates in the European Union. The application of a new test is proposed that involves unit root testing of the first principal component based on national-EU inflation differentials. Using inflation data based on harmonized consumer price indices for 1999-2007, the first principal component is stationary. This suggests that a...

Convergence Patterns in Sovereign Bond Yield Spreads: Evidence from the Euro Area

This study examines the convergence patterns of Euro Area (EA) 17 countries’ sovereign bond yield spreads (relative to German bund) over the period of March 2002 to December 2015, by employing the convergence algorithm developed by Phillips and Sul (2007). The empirical findings suggest rejection of full convergence across the EA17 countries’ bond yields spreads, and the presence of a certain n...