International Financial Integration

There is widespread agreement in the current social and economic debate that the integration of nations is growing worldwide. Many structural signs in society suggest the same. Integration has become a catch word in the preparations for the internal market of the EC, and a keynote in the debate on association of non-community European countries. Integration has also become a catch word in the process of transformation going on in Eastern Europe. But when we turn to the question of how this integration should be defined and measured, there is very little consensus. Instead, there are numerous problems, not only about how to measure integration but even about how to define it. International Financial Integration discusses the importance and the implications of this particular type of integration and then looks at the most important problems connected with measuring it. Different ways of measuring as well as the potential autonomy for national monetary policy are evaluated, and an alternative way of measurement is elaborated and advocated. All methods are discussed in detail and demonstrated in an extensive empirical analysis.