A Fragile Eurozone in Search of a Better Governance
Paul De Grauwe
No 3456, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo
Abstract:
When entering a monetary union, member-countries change the nature of their sovereign debt in a fundamental way, i.e. they cease to have control over the currency in which their debt is issued. As a result, financial markets can force these countries’ sovereigns into default. In this sense member countries of a monetary union are downgraded to the status of emerging economies. This makes the monetary union fragile and vulnerable to changing market sentiments. It also makes it possible that self-fulfilling multiple equilibria arise. I analyze the implications of this fragility for the governance of the Eurozone. I conclude that the new governance structure (ESM) does not sufficiently recognize this fragility. Some of the features of the new financial assistance are likely to increase this fragility. In addition, it is also likely to rip member-countries of their ability to use the automatic stabilizers during a recession. This is surely a step backward in the long history of social progress in Europe. I suggest a different approach to deal with these problems.
Keywords: Eurozone; multiple equilibria; governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp3456.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
Journal Article: A Fragile Eurozone in Search of a Better Governance (2012) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_3456
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().