Are EUR and GBP different words for the same currency ?

Abstract

The British Pound (GBP) is not part of the Euro (EUR) monetary system. In order to find out arguments on whether GBP should join the EUR or not correlations are calculated between GBP and EUR, including a reconstructed EUR for the time interval from 1993 till June 30, 2000. The distribution of fluctuations of the exchange rates is Gaussian for the central part of the distribution, but has fat tails for the large size fluctuations. Within the Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA) statistical method the power law behaviour describing the root-mean-square deviation of the exchange rate fluctuations is obtained as a function of time for the time interval of interest. The time-dependent exponent evolution of the exchange rate fluctuations is given. Statistical considerations imply that the GBP is already behaving as a true EUR.