@article{2018,title={The Challenges of Monetary Integration in the European Union: The Theory of Optimum Currency Areas and Crises},abstractNode={The main goal in the establishment of European Economic Community in 1957 was to be able to realize the economic integration, which will surpass customs union, by generating a common market in which the production factors can roam freely. Thus, although the monetary union was not at the core of the integration trend at the time, political efforts and theoretical approaches on monetary integration gained impetus. In 1961, when analyzing the characteristics of the optimum currency areas for countries aiming economic integration, Mundell draw attention to the question of whether monetary unions with common currency had advantage over the areas with fixed exchange rate system without any common currency, and argued that, common currency practices, which will materialize years later in Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), can create the circumstances to sustain the common market in a consistent and dynamic manner. In this context, in the present study, historical development of monetary integration and structural challenges which became evident further along with Euro Area crisis are investigated – thereby reaching the conclusion that EMU is an area of fixed exchange rate system that is far from providing the optimum conditions.},author={Çağdaş CENGİZ},year={2018},journal={Journal of Academic Value Studies (JAVStudies)}}