Abstract

The European Monetary Union (EMU) will involve socialization of the existing seigniorage wealth of the national central banks. This socialization will create windfall gains for countries with relatively low monetary bases such as France and the UK and it will be disadvantageous for countries like Germany, Austria, Spain or the Netherlands which will suffer per capita wealth losses of between 406 and 182 ecus. Tue paper quantifies the gains and losses in seigniorage wealth under alternative membership and bank regulation scenarios.

JEL classification

E58; F33; F42

Keywords

Central Banks; European Integration; European Monetary Union; Seigniorage