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An Optimum Currency Area In South Asia: Is It Plausible?, Nilanjan Banik, Basudeb Biswas, Peter J. Saunders

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Business

This article is an empirical investigation of the potential feasibility of an optimum currency area (OCA) in South Asia. Under an OCA, member countries share a common currency (like the Euro), and forego autonomy with respect to monetary policy instruments. Countries are good candidates for forming an OCA if there is a long-run relationship in the trend (permanent) component of output. Our results indicate existence of such a long-run relationship in the trend component of gross domestic product (GDP) among the member countries in South Asia. Hence, the South Asia region has the potential to form an OCA.