How wide are European borders? : On the integration effects of monetary unions
- We use consumer price data for 81 European cities (in Germany, Austria, Finland, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland) to study the impact of the introduction of the euro on goods market integration. Employing both aggregated and disaggregated consumer price index (CPI) data we confirm previous results which showed that the distance between European cities explains a significant amount of the variation in the prices of similar goods in different locations. We also find that the variation of relative prices is much higher for two cities located in different countries than for two equidistant cities in the same country. Under the EMU, the elimination of nominal exchange rate volatility has largely reduced these border effects, but distance and border still matter for intra-European relative price volatility.
| Author: | Axel A. Weber, Guenter Beck |
|---|---|
| URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30-9849 |
| Parent Title (German): | Center for Financial Studies (Frankfurt am Main): CFS working paper series ; No. 2001,07 |
| Series (Serial Number): | CFS working paper series (2001, 07 r) |
| Document Type: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Year of Completion: | 2003 |
| Year of first Publication: | 2003 |
| Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
| Release Date: | 2005/06/13 |
| Tag: | EMU; border effects; goods market integration; law of one price; purchasing power parity; real exchange rates; relative price volatility |
| GND Keyword: | Deutschland; Österreich; Schweiz; Italien; Spanien; Portugal; Verbraucherpreis; Europäische Union; Währungsunion |
| Issue: | This Version: April 2003 |
| Note: | First Version: January 2001 : "How Wide Are European Borders? New Evidence on the Integration Effects of Monetary Unions" |
| HeBIS-PPN: | 210693193 |
| Institutes: | Wissenschaftliche Zentren und koordinierte Programme / Center for Financial Studies (CFS) |
| Dewey Decimal Classification: | 3 Sozialwissenschaften / 33 Wirtschaft / 330 Wirtschaft |
| Licence (German): |  Deutsches Urheberrecht |
