International Asset Holdings And The Euro

The establishment of a monetary union in Europe in 1999 has eliminated exchange rate risk within the euro area and has led to a more unified financial framework. It has been established in the literature that the euro has led to a disproportional increase in bilateral asset holdings within the euro area. This paper builds on this evidence and answers the question whether this has been a one-off effect, or whether the euro effect in intra-euro area bilateral asset holdings has changed over time. The authors show, using a gravity framework, that the proportional increase in bilateral asset holdings took place in the early years of the European monetary union and was a unique event.