The Costs and Benefits of Euro-sation in Central-Eastern Europe Before or Instead of EMU Membership

Abstract

Countries unable or unwilling to join a Monetary Union can partly replicate membership effects through either a Currency Board or formal replacement of the domestic currency by the currency of the Union. Schemes of this kind have been introduced recently in Transition Economies. The net balance of costs and benefits involved, for the country and the common currency area, are shown to be an empirical question, depending on a number of conditions and primarily on the degree of monetary, real, and institutional convergence already achieved beforehand. Positive net advantages may derive from dollar/Euro-isation but should not be taken for granted.