Conclusions I am convinced that Economic and Monetary Union provides a great opportunity to create and maintain a large zone of price stability and economic prosperity in Europe, including a substantial reduction of unemployment. However, while price stability is a necessary condition for fully grasping the opportunities of EMU, it is not in itself sufficient.
Looking back at the period from the early 1990s to the present, Japan has experienced the bursting of the domestic bubble economy, the Asian Financial Crisis and the financial system crisis in Japan, and the Great Recession caused by the Global Financial  1  This article forms part of joint research with Hamada Koichi (Yale University) and was written solely by Sakurai Makoto and Kimata Tomonori.