TY  - JOUR
AU  - Sinn,Hans-Werner
AU  - Feist,Holger
TI  - Eurowinners and Eurolosers: The Distribution of Seigniorage Wealth in EMU
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6072
PY  - 1999
Y2  - May 1999
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6072
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6072.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Hans-Werner Sinn
Ifo Institute -
Leibniz Institute for Economic Research
at University of Munich
Poschingerstr. 5
81679 Munich
GERMANY
Tel: 49-89-21802748
Fax: 49-89-397303;49-89-8506434 (home)
E-Mail: sinn@ifo.de
AB  - The European Monetary Union (EMU) will involve socialization of the existing seigniorage wealth of the national central banks, because the Euro will have to be bought by these banks in exchange for assets which have been accumulated in the historical process of money creation.  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, the Netherlands and Spain which will suffer per capita wealth losses of between 406 and 182 ecus. This paper quantifies the gains and losses in seigniorage wealth under alternative membership and bank regulation scenarios.
ER  -