Interest rate linkages in Europe before and after the introduction of the European Monetary System

Abstract

In this paper, possible interest rate linkages between the U.S. and Europe and within Europe are investigated with special reference to the EMS. We use three-month domestic money market rates from 1974 to 1979, from 1983 to 1989, and from 1990 to 1994 for Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S. For all periods, we find a strong German influence on the development in the other European countries and, for the first two periods, at best a very weak direct influence from the U.S. However, Germany does not dominate the other countries totally. There are significant relations between the EMS member countries which are not influenced by Germany, and there are relations to other EMS members than Germany from outside this system. Revised Version, March 1995. — Earlier versions of this paper wer presented at seminars at the Universities of Zurich, Bielefeld and Leuven, and at the Konstanzer Seminar on Monetary Theory and Monetary Policy. We thank the participants of these seminars as well as two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions. — We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft by Grant No. 322 147. We thank Wilhelm-Johannes Jaenicke for performing the computations and Anna Rushing-Jungeilges for editing the paper in English.