To whom have chosen the option short paper: Send me  a proposal of the short paper with references (Jordi.Bacaria@uab.es). The short paper should be deliverated before April 2. Please comunicate as soon as possible your option. Until now I have only two proposals (Galli Ben Simhon and Ehud Nahmani)

Lecture:
(February 21 to March 2, 2000)

The European System of Central Banks: From Theory to Practice
Professor: Dr. Jordi Bacaria
e-mail: Jordi.Bacaria@uab.es
 

Contents:

1. Introduction to the economics of EMU and the world economy
2. Politics of EMU: European Central Bank and ECOFIN
3. The European System of Central Banks: Comparison between world federal central banks
4. Decision making in the EMU: Independence and accountability in the ECB. The EU enlargement concerning the ECB.

- Decision making in the ECB

- Coordination of policies (rate of exchange, fiscal policy) between the ECB and the Council (Ecofin)

- Matching federal central banks and federal systems (the degree of importance in the upper and lower chambers)

- Relations between the Euro and other currency associates (decision ECB and Ecofin)

- Central Bank independence and price stability. Preferences vs. Incentives in the central bankers (FED, New Zealand, ECB)

- Asymmetric shocks in some of the UE member's states and electoral preferences
 
BOOKS AND ARTICLES (digital format):

The students of this course are authorized to have access to the professor's Bacaria web to load the different materials to follow the course. In any case, these documents are in different webs that you can link (see next section) to get them. The reason to collect these documents here is to facilitate the students work. Click on the item to go to the professor folder where the material is stored.
Any person -non student of the course- that load documents from the professor Bacaria's folder has a responsibility in front the publishers of these documents
 

REFERENCES

On decision making in ECB (text with different levels of difficulty (formal appendix)):
ENLARGEMENT AND THE EUROPEAN MONETARY UNION, by Jordi Bacaria, Georgios E. Chortareas and Andreas P. Kyriacou (click on the title to load the document from the professor Bacaria's folder)

On central banks independence
- Central Bank Independence: An update of Theory and Evidence (January 1999) by H. Berger, J de Haan, S CW Eijffinger: . This is the 2353 working paper published by CEPR where you can find this paper in electronic format.
- Central Bank Credibility. Why do we care? How do we build it? (1999) by Alan S. Blinder
This is the wp 7161, NBER working paper series
 

Conflicting national interest in the central bank council
- On the role of conflicting national interests in the ECB council by Hans Peter Gruner (July 1999)
This is the 2192 working paper published by CEPR where you can find this paper in electronic format.

- Krause, G. (1996) Agent heterogeneity and consensual decision making on the Federal Open Market Committee. Public Choice 88: 83-101.

On the economic policy coordination. The related problems in the coordination between monetary and fiscal policy in the EMU
- Economic Policy Coordination in EMU: Strategies and Institutions (1999) by Charles Wyplosz
This is a working paper published by CEPR where you can find this paper in electronic format.

The discussion about the transparency, openess, accountability and voting records in the ECB:
- The single monetary policy. The role of transparency and openess, by Ms Sirkka Hämäläinen, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank
- Letters to the editor, The Financial Times by W. H. Buiter
- Monetary Policy Issues for the Eurosystem (1999) by Lars E O Svensson. See 6 Transparency in page 46
- On the Need for Clarity in Monetary Policy-Making (1999) by Bernhard Winkler European Central Bank

The history of monetary unions and lessons for the EMU
- The future of EMU: What does the history of monetary unions tell us? (1999) by Michael D. Bordo and Lars Jonung
This is the wp 7365, NBER working paper series

General references

Alesina, A. and Summers, L. (1993) Central bank independence and macroeconomic performance: Some comparative evidence. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 25(2):151-62.
Bacaria, J. (1993) Supra-national or national monetary rules as constitutions: reflections on the European Monetary Union. Economia delle Scelte Pubbliche 2-3:157-71.
Barro, G. and Gordon, D. (1983a) A positive theory of monetary policy in a natural rate model. Journal of Political Economy 91(4):589-610.
Barro, G. and Gordon, D. (1983b) Rules, discretion and reputation in a model of monetary policy. Journal of Monetary Economics 12:101-121.
Beck, N. (1990) Congress and the Fed: Why the dog does not bark in the night. In: T. Mayer (ed.) The political economy of American monetary policy. Cambridge University Press. 131-150.
Brash, D.T. (1996) New Zealand’s remarkable reforms. Occasional Paper 100. London: Institute of Economic Affairs.
Cukierman, A. (1992) Central bank strategy, credibility and independence: Theory and evidence. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
De Grauwe, P. (1994) The economics of monetary integration. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
De Haan, J. (1997) The European Central Bank: independence, accountability and strategy: A review. Public Choice 93:395-426.
De Haan, J. and van'T Hag, J. (1995) Variation in central bank independence across countries: Some provisional empirical evidence. Public Choice 85:335-351.
FED. (1994) The Federal Reserve System. Purposes & funtions. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Washington, D.C.
Fratianni, M., von Hagen, J and Waller C. (1997) Central banking as a political principal-agent problem. Economic Inquiry 35: 378-393.
Gildea, J. (1992) The Regional Representation of Federal Reserve Bank Presidents. Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking 24(2): 215-225.
Goodman, J. (1991) The politics of central bank independence. Comparative Politics 23(3):329-349.
Krause, G. (1996) Agent heterogeneity and consensual decision making on the Federal Open Market Committee. Public Choice 88: 83-101.
Kydland, F. and Prescott, E. (1977) Rules rather than discretion: The inconsistency of optimal plans. Journal of Political Economy 85(3):473-491.
Moser, P. (1994) The supply of central bank independence. Discussion paper 9501, University of St. Gallen.
Vaubel, R. (1997a) The Bureaucratic and partisan behavior of independent central banks: German and international evidence. European Journal of Political Economy 23:201-224.
Waller, C. (1995). The choice of a conservative central banker in a multisectoral economy. American Economic Review 82(4):1006-1012.
Walsh, C. (1995) Optimal contracts for central bankers. American Economic Review 85:150-167.
 
 
 
PROFESSOR BACARIA'S FOLDERS

THE TREATIES FOLDER:
- Consolidated version of the Treaty on the European Union
- Consolidated version of the Treaty establishing the European Community

See the links to find this document and more information
Consolidated versions incorporating the changes made by the Treaty of Amsterdam http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/treaties/index.html
Treaty on European Union
Treaty stablishing the European Community
 

EUROPEAN COMMISSION (EC) FOLDER:
EuroPapers:
- The introduction of the Euro
- Jean-Pierre Chauffour and Loukas Stemitsiotis (1998): The impact of the euro on Mediterranean partner countries
- Peter Bekx (1998) The implications of the Introduction of the Euro for non-EU countries

See the links to find these documents and other produced by the Directorate General II: Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission

EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK (ECB) FOLDER:
- Issing, Otmar (1999): Hayek: Currency competition and European Monetary Union. ECB
- Objectives and Tasks of the ESCB
- On the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank
- Rules of procedure of the General Council of the European Central Bank
- Organisation of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB)
- Who owns the ECB?

See the link to find this document and more information
European Central Bank

FED FOLDER:
- The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions
- Introducing the FED. by the Federal Reserve of New York

A goog page to navigate by the Fed and other central banks in the world: The Federal Reserve Board: Site Map

See the links to find this document and more information
FED: Information of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System you can find the meetings of the (Board of Governors) and the minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)

RESERVE BANK OF NEW ZEALAND
 - THE RESERVE BANK OF NEW ZEALAND ACT 1989: OUR ACCOUNTABILITY TO NEW ZEALANDERS
-  Reducing Inflation in New Zealand: Some Practical Issues (1996) Donald T. Brash.Symposium Jackson Hole. Paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City

    RBNZ link

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF):
 

    IMF link

BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS (BIS):
 
    BIS link

CATO JOURNAL:

    Cato Journal link

THE ECONOMIST:

    The Economist link

    Survey see in The Economist: Financial and Economic Surveys in Worl Economy
    SURVEY  THE WORLD ECONOMY: Navigators in troubled waters
    Central banks are now more powerful than ever before.

ECSA EUROPE:
ECSA (European Community Studies Association) Association to promote the studies and research in European integration.
See the papers on European integration in European Integration Online Papers ECSA-Austria.
 
 
 revised February 19, 2000

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