Monetary Policy at the European Periphery

1. The EMU Ins and the EMU Outs: Maastricht and beyond.- 1.1. Introduction.- 1.2. On the feasibility of EMU in Europe.- 1.3. The Ins group and the Outs group.- 1.4. Monetary policy after 1999.- 1.5. Summary and concluding remarks.- 2 Greece and the European Monetary Union: a bottle half-empty or half-full?.- 2.1. Introduction.- 2.2. The Greek economy: past performance and current position.- 2.3 Costs and benefits fiom EMU membership.- 2.4. The Greek Convergence Programmes: a deficit of credibility.- 2.5. What strategy for Greece?.- 3 Monetary developments in Greece: 1975-97.- 3.1. A brief account of monetary events.- 3.2. The process of financial liberalization.- 3.3. Money and credit aggregates.- 3.4. Interest rates.- 3.5. Exchange rates.- 4 Recent Greek monetary policies.- 4.1. Introduction.- 4.2. Some preliminaries.- 4.3. Recent monetary strategies in Greece.- 5 From intermediate targets to formal inflation targets in Greece.- 5.1. Introduction.- 5.2. Inflation-targeting: theory and international evidence.- 5.3. Inflation in Greece.- 5.4. Main features and operation of an inflation-targeting regime in Greece.- 5.4.1. Why an inflation-targeting regime for Greece ?.- 6 An independent Bank of Greece: An idea whose time has come.- 6.1. Introduction.- 6.3. The Bank of Greece: Past experience and current regime>.- 6.4. How independent should the Bank of Greece be?>.- 6.5. Independence and other associated functions of the Bank of Greece>.- 6.6. An independent and accountable Bank of Greece>.- Annex: Assessing the recent Bill 2548197>.- 7 Summary and Lessons for EU candidates.- Appendix Tables.- List of Figures.- List of Tables.