There are two schools of thought on whether Latvia should devalue the lat, or fight tooth and nail to keep its currency peg to the euro.  One, espoused by the Latvian government, the International Monetary Fund  and the European Commission, is that devaluation would destabilise the Latvian banking system, wouldn’t really address the long-term challenges facing the Latvian economy, and would risk spreading shock waves beyond Latvia across the Baltic and into other parts of central and eastern Europe.

The other view, espoused by some of the world’s leading economists, such as Paul Krugman and Nouriel Roubini, can be summed up as: “Get Real”.  Without devaluation, the only path that Latvia can go down to extract itself from crisis is massive deflation, through spending cuts and sharp falls in wages that will inflict terrible damage on society and will unnecessarily prolong Latvia’s recession. Read more