Is the Euro Ending or Beginning?
Pisani-Ferry, Jean. When the architects of the euro started drawing up plans for its creation in the late 1980’s, economists warned them that a viable monetary union required more than an independent central bank and a framework for budgetary discipline. Study after study emphasized asymmetries within the future common-currency area, the possible inadequacy of a […]
The Crisis of European Democracy
Sen, Amartya. If proof were needed of the maxim that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the economic crisis in Europe provides it. The worthy but narrow intentions of the European Union’s policy makers have been inadequate for a sound European economy and have produced instead a world of misery, chaos and […]
Is Europe ready for banking union?
Véron, Nicolas. Many policymakers and academics are now agreed that a banking union, together with some form of fiscal union, is needed if the Eurozone is to emerge from the crisis in one piece. This column argues that while the current proposals for a banking union still need to be fine tuned, the crisis calls […]
American Lessons (for Europe)
Acemoglu, Daron, Robinson, James. Thomas J. Sargent’s Nobel Prize lecture, “United States Then, Europe Now,” draws an important parallel between the United States – the Articles of Confederation of 1781 and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788 – and Europe today. In both cases, polities were joined in a currency union under the […]
Who is Responsible for the Greek Tragedy?
El-Erian, Mohamed. Greece is following the road taken by several other crisis-ridden emerging economies over the past 30 years. Indeed, as I argued earlier this year, there are stunning similarities between this once-proud eurozone member and Argentina prior to its default in 2001. With an equally traumatic implosion – economic, financial, political, and social – […]
The Eurozone crisis: Fiscal fragility, external imbalances, or both?
Alessandrini, Pietro, Fratianni, Michele, Hughes Hallett, Andrew & Presbitero, Andrea. Unsustainable debt along Europe’s periphery is bringing the euro to breaking point. But this column argues that this is not simply the result of fiscal ill-discipline. After 2010, the Eurozone crisis went from a fiscal crisis to a balance-of-payments crisis – with different prescriptions for policy. Πηγή: […]
Greece’s predicament: Lessons from Argentina
Kretzmer, Peter, Levy, Mickey. Greece’s economic and financial crisis is quickly deteriorating and there is no strategy – or even a coalition government – to figure out what to do next. This column looks at the lessons from Argentina’s default in 2001 and argues that Greece’s road to necessary economic reforms, fiscal sustainability and recovery […]
Let’s Toast The Greek Bailout
Dalton, Matthew. Greece still needs its international creditors from the euro zone and the International Monetary Fund, but it needs them much less than when its now-despised bailout program began in 2010. How so? The IMF and the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, project that Greece’s primary deficit – that’s the government deficit excluding […]
The impossible hope of an end to austerity
Wyplosz, Charles. With French and Greek voters rejecting austerity, politicians are once again taking the government spending debate seriously. This column argues that the voters are right – it is a bad idea to tighten fiscal policy when growth is so feeble. But the column adds that, wherever one looks, the road away from austerity […]
Is Europe on a Cross of Gold?
Eichengreen, Barry. Increasingly, one hears predictions that the euro will go the way of the gold standard in the 1930’s. And, increasingly, the reasoning behind such forecasts seems persuasive. But does that mean that the euro doomsayers are right? Πηγή: Project Syndicate πλήρες κείμενο