IN THIS ISSUE...

A European Central Bank?
The Centre held a panel discussion to launch its book on A European Central Bank? Perspectives on Monetary Unification after Ten Years of the EMS. The book assesses the costs and benefits of monetary unification and the institutional issues in the creation of a European Central Bank.

Population Economics
The tenth Anglo/French Colloquium, held this year in London, was devoted to `Population Economics'. The participants discussed the effects of demographic changes on labour supply behaviour, the interactions between demographic variables and savings, and the measurement of consumption and welfare within households.

Primary Commodity Prices
A conference in March brought together participants from the United States and Europe to analyse econometric modelling of primary commodity prices and the merits of schemes to stabilize LDC earnings from commodity exports.

European Financial Markets Network
A new European Network on Financial Markets has been established under CEPR's auspices, with financial support from the European Science Foundation's Scientific Networks Programme, to provide European researchers with a forum to discuss their research and develop collaborative projects. Its first meeting was held in April.

Lunchtime Meetings

At a lunchtime meeting in March, Gernot Klepper examined the consequences of 1992 for European consumers and producers of pharmaceutical products.

Elisabetta Bertero presented the first global analysis of the stock market crash of 1987. This revealed that the existence of computer-based trading did not significantly affect the size of the crash in different countries.

Robert Gordon argued that there is considerable historical evidence to support `hysteresis' explanations of unemployment, but little evidence to support Friedman's natural rate hypothesis.

Footwear protection in the UK is expensive, Alan Winters told a lunchtime meeting in March, and does not appreciably benefit UK producers.

Jacques Melitz argued that an EMS realignment, the sharing of control over monetary policy, and the abolition of legal reserve requirements would help European financial integration succeed.

Damien Neven examined the structural changes in European retail banking which will follow from recent EC directives to stimulate competition.

Stephen Nickell discussed whether there has been a `Thatcher miracle' in the UK economy since 1979.


Discussion Papers

George Alogoskoufis analyses how McKinnon's and Williamson's proposals for more stable exchange rates compare to optimal monetary regimes.

Martin Neil Baily and Robert Gordon find that measurement errors partly explain the slowdown in US productivity growth since 1973.

Daniel Cohen and Charles Wyplosz argue that the debate over European Monetary Union should take account of an important spillover: the externality associated with the determination of Europe's common trade balance and real exchange rate.

Marcus Miller and Paul Weller describe an analytical technique which can be used to analyse the behaviour of a variety of macroeconomic models, including an exchange rate band.

Jacques Melitz and Christian Bordes analyse the implications of deregulation of financial markets for macroeconomic policy and stability.

Stephen Nickell and Sushil Wadhwani conduct an empirical analysis of UK companies to test the significance of `insider' forces and hysteresis in the labour market.

Ramon Caminal, Jordi Gual and Xavier Vives examine the prospects for increased competition in Spanish banking after 1992.

Charles Bean and James Symons investigate macroeconomic developments in the UK economy since 1979, focusing on the behaviour of unemployment.