Tests of microeconomic foundations of Asian common currency areas

The formation of the euro bloc sparked renewed interest in other potential common currency areas. Swofford [Swofford, J. L. (2000). Microeconomic foundations of an optimal currency area. Review of Financial Economics, 9, 121-128] set forth some microeconomic foundations for a common currency area. In this paper, some results from tests of these microeconomic foundations for various hypothesized Asian common currency areas are presented. These results can be viewed as broadly favorable for the formation of some Asian common currency areas.