By Paul De Grauwe
The crisis that started in Greece culminated into a crisis of the eurozone as a whole. It may find a temporary resolution. But even then, it will leave an important imprint on macroeconomic management within the eurozone.
Ever since the federal republic was founded, Germany has had two over-riding strategic objectives: sound money and European integration. These were the twin imperatives learned from the calamities of the early 20th century. The euro embodies these aims. Now they conflict with each other.
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By Laurence Kotlikoff
“Greece is being victimised by its use of the euro. Prices and wages within Greece are too high and can’t readily be adjusted downward. Were the country using its own currency, it could simply devalue.” This, together with profligate government spending, is the generally accepted explanation for the run on Greek bonds.
By Arminio Fraga
Greece and the EU face a momentous challenge. At stake are Greece’s future and, to some extent, the future of the EU itself. It is obvious that a very large economic adjustment will have to be at the core of any durable solution to the crisis. It also seems clear that the required adjustment will demand time and external support to be viable. Greece’s situation is dramatic but it is by no means the only such fiscal challenge the region, or the world, now faces. Some tough decisions are going to have to be made in the near future. Here a bit of history can be enlightening.
By Chris Giles, the FT’s economics editor. This post was first published on the FT’s Money Supply blog.
Three wonderful ironies stand out from the tentative eurozone plan to back Greece in its hour of need. The Eurogroup’s leaders have agreed to pressure Greece to shore up its public finances, use International Monetary Fund expertise to help set the framework for reducing borrowing, but back Greece with an offer of emergency funds if it required liquidity and could not borrow in the markets. Socialist EU leaders issued a statement last night, talking about “a last-resort mechanism of financial support, coupling lending by private banks with a guarantee to be provided by eurozone members”
By Tony Barber, the FT’s Brussels bureau chief. This post was first published on the FT’s Brussels blog.
Today’s European Union summit in Brussels will set out the framework for a financial rescue operation for Greece. This much is clear is from various briefings being given by officials from countries as varied as Austria, Lithuania, Poland and Spain. But financial markets will have to wait until next week to see the full details of the plan.
By Thomas Palley
The last quarter of the 19th century witnessed a period of sustained global deflation. In the 1896 US presidential election, William Jennings Bryan famously attacked the gold standard as the cause of deflation, declaring “You shall not press upon the brow of labour this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”
The financial crisis of 2009 is morphing into the fiscal anxieties of 2010. This is particularly true inside the eurozone. Spreads between rates of interest on Greek bonds and German bunds touched 3.86 percentage points in late January (see chart). The risk has emerged of a self-fulfilling confidence crisis that would have dire consequences for other vulnerable members. Much attention has focused on what might happen if the crisis were not resolved, with talk of bail-outs, defaults or even exits from the euro. But what would need to be done to resolve the crisis, without such a calamity? It is the demand, stupid.
Conventional wisdom in the eurozone is that the crises are the result of poor policy-making in peripheral countries. In particular, fiscal policy has been too loose and economies too inflexible. The wages of such sins are austerity. Then, after a lengthy penance, the lost sheep returns to the fold of stability.
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The Greek government has promised to slash its fiscal deficit from an estimated 12.7 per cent of gross domestic product last year to 3 per cent in 2012. Is it plausible that this will happen? Not very. But Greece is merely the canary in the fiscal coal mine. Other eurozone members are also under pressure to slash fiscal deficits. What might such pressure do to vulnerable members, to the eurozone and to the world economy?
Having falsified its figures for years, violating the trust of its partners, Greece is in the doghouse. Yet, even if it bears much of the blame, the task it is undertaking is huge. In particular, unlike most countries with massive fiscal deficits – the UK, for example – Greece cannot offset the impact of fiscal tightening by loosening monetary policy or depreciating its currency.
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What would have happened during the financial crisis if the euro had not existed? The short answer is that there would have been currency crises among its members. The currencies of Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain would surely have fallen sharply against the old D-Mark. That is the outcome the creators of the eurozone wished to avoid. They have been successful. But, if the exchange rate cannot adjust, something else must instead. That “something else” is the economies of peripheral eurozone member countries. They are locked into competitive disinflation against Germany, the world’s foremost exporter of very high-quality manufactures. I wish them luck.
The eurozone matters. Its economy is almost as big as that of the US. It is three times bigger than those of Japan or China. So far, it has passed its initial test. Nevertheless, the peak to trough decline of the US economy was only 3.8 per cent (second quarter 2008 to second quarter 2009), while the eurozone’s was 5.1 per cent (first quarter 2008 to second quarter 2009).
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