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We are greatly indebted to David Laidler for his comments on an early version of this paper, to J. R. Sargent for his comments on a subsequent draft, and to Anandadeep Mandal for assistance with data and Ali Kabiri for his suggestions of data bases and sources.

This article is a step towards empirically assessing how close the Eurozone is to becoming an ‘optimal currency area’, as originally defined by Mundell (). For this purpose we have compiled ten indicators, organised them in four partial indices, and summarised them in an overall indicator of ‘optimality’. The resulting picture is mixed, with zone optimality not increasing when circumstances were favourable but the trend towards integration returning after the 2008–14 crisis. The suggestion is that disintegration during the crisis, rather than being evidence of failure of the Eurozone when the going was tough, showed a self‐healing mechanism at work. However, our measurements and indices show that optimality is much further away than it was in 1999, when the euro was launched.

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