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This week we're answering your questions on the euro.

Iain Begg, Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, sheds some light.

Rafferty Dean from Manchester wants to know if we do ever change over to the euro what exchange rate will we get? Will it be the bank rate or just the tourist rate?

If we change to the euro, there will be a very precise conversion rate which will be formally agreed between the government and our EU partners.

For those countries which are already part of the euro area, the rate was given to six significant figures; so for France, it was 6.55957 francs to the euro. We would expect something similar, such as �0.703871 to the euro.

There would then be a conversion period during which all sterling notes and coins and all bank balances and other sterling denominated financial assets and liabilities - including mortgages - would be converted at that rate with no charge or buying and selling margin for financial intermediaries.

It would be closest to the inter-bank rate and certainly would not have the spread between buying and selling rates that characterises tourist rates.

Nigel Ruddle from Portadown asks why we can't have a dual currency - the pound and the euro?

We could, in principle have a dual currency at any time.

However, it would be very inefficient. Shops, pubs and so on would have to maintain two tills and to find ways of integrating two sets of transactions.

More important, though, is the choice of currency for what is known as monetary policy - the setting of interest rates and exchange rates.

For this either one currency must dominate or the exchange rate between the two currencies must be permanently fixed.

In Scotland and Northern Ireland, there are different banknotes, although all denominated in pounds.

All of them depend on the Bank of England, even though they bear different labels, and it is the Bank of England which has sole responsibility for setting the interest rates that apply throughout the UK.

There can only be one interest rate so that if we had a dual currency, the key question would be which one was adopted for setting interest rates.

If the answer was the euro, there would be no real point in retaining sterling.

Another viewer wants to know what will happen to the country's gold and currency reserves if we join the euro - will we have to give them to the European Central Bank?

The eurosystem has actually been set up as a system of central banks in much the same way as the Federal Reserve in the US has both a central body and regional banks.

Thus, despite the advent of the euro, the Bundesbank and the Banque de France etc still exist and there is a division of labour between these National Central Banks and the ECB.

These National Central Banks are the shareholders in the ECB and each contributes a proportion of the reserves of the European bank roughly reflecting the size of the respective economies.

Therefore, the answer is no we do not give away our reserves to the ECB, rather a proportion of them are provided to it as a form of working capital, but still effectively belong to us as shareholders.

Sidney Edwards from Hampshire wants to know how much it would cost the country to join up to the euro?

Estimating how much it will cost to convert to the euro is far from easy.

All machines that take or dispense cash have to be converted.

Banks have to change their software.

There is the cost of printing and pressing new notes and coins.

There would have to be a public education campaign and much more.

The only honest answer is that no-one really knows how much it will cost, not least because the burden will be spread among the public purse, banks, companies and individuals.

And some of the supposed "costs", such as new bank software or renewal of cash machinery, would probably have to be incurred anyway as part of routine maintenance or upgrading.

The treasury has just published what is known as the National Changeover Plan which sets out how this will be done, but does not tell us what it will cost.

Estimates I have seen, some based on what happened in the euro area, range from �3-11bn, although not surprisingly, the "No" campaign quotes a much higher figure.

These sound like very big numbers and will inevitably be translated into numbers of hospitals or nurses which could have been paid for instead!

But to put them in perspective, the Treasury suggested this week that we would see gains of �2-3bn a year from joining, just from increased trade, so that depending on who you believe, UK Plc could recoup the costs either very quickly or in just a few years.

If we do join what will happen to all the old sterling coins and notes?

Notes and coins are regularly replaced as they wear out - think of the crisp new tenner you sometimes receive from a cash machine.

If the euro became our currency, no new sterling notes and coins would be issued and when the changeover period ended, any remaining sterling would, literally, be scrapped.

To many people's surprise, the old currencies disappeared very quickly in the euro area as the public preferred the new notes and coins.

Elsie Clark from Staffordshire asks if we will need a Chancellor if we join the euro? Will Gordon Brown lose his job?

Despite frequent - and misleading - claims to the contrary, all euro area countries remain fully responsible for what is known as fiscal policy, that is decisions on taxation and public expenditure.

They have to respect certain rules designed to prevent excessive public borrowing, embodied in what is know as the Stability and Growth Pact, but national finance ministers (the counterparts of our Chancellor) are free to decide which taxes to impose (and at what rates) and how to spend the money.

They also have a very important role to play in running the euro area economy.

Therefore, unless he falls out with the Prime Minister, no, Gordon Brown would not be spending more time with his family.

Peter Boatman from Guernsey e-mailed us to ask if Britain joined the euro what would happen to British dependent territories like Guernsey if they wanted to keep the pound ? Would the Bank of England still support the currency ?

As far as I know, there is not yet any blueprint for how this might be handled. The Channel Islands have an unusual constitutional status in not being formally part of the European Union.

My guess is, however, that market pressures would push Guernsey quite quickly to change to the euro.

A possible parallel is the Central African franc for which the Banque de France still acts as a custodian, so I'd expect that if Guernsey did want to retain the pound the Bank of England would fulfil a similar role.

The opinions expressed are Iain's, not the programme's. The answers are not intended to be definitive and should be used for guidance only. Always seek professional advice for your own particular situation.