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The Financial Crisis and the Future of the Eurozone. Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 21/2010

De Grauwe, Paul (2010) The Financial Crisis and the Future of the Eurozone. Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 21/2010. [Policy Paper]

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    Abstract

    The government debt crisis, erupted in the Eurozone in 2009, nearly led to the collapse of European monetary union. Now that this has been averted, the question is what should be done to make the Eurozone sustainable in the long run. The survival of the Eurozone hinges on the capacity of its leaders to improve the eurozone's governance. With the exception of Greece, the root cause of the government debt crisis has little to do with the poor performance of the SGP, rather, with unsustainable debt accumulation by private actors. Also, the method of convergence implicit in the SGP has not worked well – macroeconomic divergences have stubbornly remained for nearly a decade and several countries experienced boom and bust dynamics. Although strong declines in real interest rates may explain part of the story (but e.g. Italy did not experience boom & bust), self-fulfilling waves of optimism and pessimism which might be called 'animal spirits' and are of mainly national origin, seem a good candidate for explanation. These national animal spirits endogenously trigger credit expansion and contraction. It follows that (national) movements of credit ought to be under much firmer control and this is up to the monetary authorities, including the ECB. Critical recommendations for better governance of the Eurozone should therefore combine credible measures to maintain fiscal discipline over the medium term with such instruments as minimum reserve requirements to control the growth of bank credit as well as minimum reserve requirements in different national banking systems. Finally, the idea of adding more sanctions to the SGP may be ill-conceived since, in future, it might pre-empt national governments to come to the rescue of banks (under credible threats of contagion) and/or prevent a downward spiral in economic activity.

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    Item Type: Policy Paper
    Uncontrolled Keywords: financial crisis, monetary policy, Eurozone.
    Subjects for non-EU documents: EU policies and themes > Policies & related activities > economic and financial affairs > EMU/EMS/euro
    EU policies and themes > Policies & related activities > economic and financial affairs > monetary policy
    EU policies and themes > Policies & related activities > economic and financial affairs > financial crisis 2008-on/reforms/economic governance
    Subjects for EU documents: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Series and Periodicals: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Annual Reports: UNSPECIFIED
    Series: Series > College of Europe (Brugge) > Bruges European Economic Policy Briefings (BEEP)
    Depositing User: Phil Wilkin
    Official EU Document: No
    Language: English
    Date Deposited: 22 Dec 2014 11:26
    Number of Pages: 17
    Last Modified: 22 Dec 2014 11:26
    URI: http://aei.pitt.edu/id/eprint/58454

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