Monitoring Euro Area Real Exchange Rates

We apply the stationarity and cointegration monitoring procedure of Wagner and Wied in (Monitoring stationarity and cointegration. SFB823 Discussion Paper 23/14. http://​hdl.​handle.​net/​2003/​33430, 2014) to monthly real exchange rate indices, vis-a`-vis Germany, of the first round Euro area member states. For all countries except Portugal structural breaks are detected prior to the onset of the Euro area crisis triggered in turn by the global financial crisis. The results indicate that a more detailed investigation of RER behavior in the Euro area may be useful for understanding the unfolding of the deep crisis currently plaguing many countries in the Euro area. (author's abstract)