Please do not shoot the wrong enemy!

Marcello Spanò ()
Additional contact information
Marcello Spanò: University of Insubria, Postal: Department of Economics – University of Insubria, Italy

No 31/2013, Working Papers from Universidade Portucalense, Centro de Investigação em Gestão e Economia (CIGE)

Abstract: This work analyses external imbalances across Europe using data on sectorial gross value of assets over sixteen years (1995-2011) in founder countries of the European Union and in the whole Euro area. The empirical analysis strongly supports arguments against the thesis that in Europe sovereign debt is the problem and fiscal austerity the solution. On the contrary, it suggests that the current crisis originates from the growing disproportion of the financial sector compared to real sectors of the economy. This study divides the financial assets generated by the domestic financial companies and by the foreign sector into two aggregates: financial resources channelled to the real domestic sectors and ‘financial assets overhang’ held within the financial and foreign sector. The financial assets overhang, which boosted the relative size of the financial sector across the continent, should be considered as the main source of excess finance to be rigidly constrained.

Keywords: European union; euro area; sovereign debt; fiscal austerity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E50 E60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2013-05-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://siupt.uportu.pt/content/files/dcee/Investigacao/WP_31_2013.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:ris:cigewp:2013_031

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Universidade Portucalense, Centro de Investigação em Gestão e Economia (CIGE) Universidade Portucalense – Economics and Management Department (CIGE – Centro de Investigação em Gestão e Economia), Rua Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida, 541-619, 4200 – 072 Porto, Portugal. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Luis Pacheco ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).