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This Bulletin reports conferences on the monetary future of Europe
and capital mobility, a workshop on econometric studies of migration,
and discussion meetings on the EC single market, Hungary, the Welfare
State, the ERM, labour markets and ageing, and East-West trade. At a joint conference with the Banco Pastor, hosted by the Diputación Provincial de La Coruńa, academics and policy-makers examined the intellectual history behind and prospects for Europe's monetary unification after the currency crises of September 1992. Capital Mobility A joint conference with Tel Aviv University's Pinhas Sapir Center for Development and the Bank of Israel reviewed the effects of enhanced international capital mobility on exchange rate, monetary and fiscal policies and convergence. Migration Participants in a joint workshop with the Universität Konstanz discussed econometric studies of migration both to `traditional' host countries and to those of Western Europe. Discussion Meetings L Alan Winters reviewed the European Community's achievements in economic and political integration following the completion of the single-market programme. István Székely assessed the prospects for Hungary's continued economic transformation and integration into the world economy. Patrick Minford argued that EC member countries should abandon the ERM and EMU in favour of policies that combine effective monitoring of monetary rules with stabilization of shocks. Dennis Snower proposed a series of policy measures to bring the ever-rising costs of Welfare State services under control. Alasdair Smith called for further liberalization of EC trade with Eastern Europe to include currently `sensitive' sectors. Among Recent Discussion Papers Ron Anderson finds that the 1992 reform of the EC Common Agricultural Policy will increase producer price volatility but do little to reduce trade tensions. Dominique Demougin and Hans-Werner Sinn propose `participation' contracts to reduce investors' risk aversion in order to privatize firms in Eastern Europe. In two papers, Bernard Hoekman and Michael Leidy investigate the political economy of regional and multilateral trade liberalizations. Juan Dolado and Samuel Bentolila find that Spanish measures to promote `flexibility' in employment have led to the development of a two-tier labour market. Alison Booth and Stephen Satchell investigate the effects of the UK apprenticeship system before the Thatcher reforms on employment duration and early job mobility. Michael Burda examines the determinants of the decision to migrate to the West for a sample of East German households first surveyed in 1991. Victor Norman and Anthony Venables develop a generalized HeckscherOhlin model in which all goods and factors can in principle be traded. Paul Levine, Somnath Sen and Ron Smith develop a model of the international arms trade that takes account of supplier governments' trade-off between economic and security objectives. László Halpern assesses the effects of the gradual reorientation of Hungarian trade over 1981-90 on the profitability and market shares of firms that exported throughout the period. Richard Clarida and Mark Taylor dispute the widespread view that forward exchange rates contain no useful information with which to predict the future course of the corresponding spot rate. |