Volume 14, Issue 1

There is no historical precedent for the institutional set-up of the eurozone. However, it is an arrangement that could not and cannot escape the universal laws and principles of economics. This article tries to look generally at the consequences of this integration project from the perspective of the former monetary hegemon, Germany, whose hegemony largely ended as a result of the monetary integration method chosen. Those consequences are, of course, more apparent in bad times than they were in good times. We then specifically examine the problem of convergence and divergence within a currency area and discuss the issue of competitive devaluation. In the conclusion, we try to formulate the fundamental dilemma faced by the former monetary hegemon. Its solution will affect those inside and outside the integration project.

Financial integration and globalization have acted as a major stimulus in the development of large, internationally operating banks, which not only provide cross-border services but also have a local presence. While these banks are themselves drivers of economic integration, they can pose serious threats to financial stability. Their size, interconnectedness and importance as providers of specific services mean that financial institutions can be too-systemic-to-fail (TSTF). Since the entry and exit of market participants is a crucial feature of well-functioning markets, the absence of any credible possibility of failure leads to serious distortions. This analysis gives an overview of the TSTF problem and discusses the challenges to be faced in establishing credible resolution regimes.

The problems with a single currency in Europe are neither temporary nor curable. Any persistent defence of the euro will result in a long-lasting recession and high unemployment in countries using fiscal austerity to pursue ‘internal devaluation’. It may lead to a revival of populist and nationalist movements, political collapse and disorderly eurozone break-up. This article argues for a controlled segmentation of the eurozone via the exit of the most competitive countries and an agreement on a new European currency coordination system.

The article presents a novel methodology for measuring the clarity of central bank communication using content analysis, illustrating the methodology with the case of the European Central Bank (ECB). The analysis identifies the ECB’s written communication as clear in about 85-95% of instances, which is comparable with, or better than, similar results available for other central banks. We also find that the additional information on risk to inflation and especially projection risk assessment contained in the ECB’s Monthly Bulletins helps to improve communication clarity compared to ECB’s press releases. In contrast, the bulletin’s communication on monetary developments has a negative, albeit small, impact on clarity.

We test the relationship between the cyclically adjusted primary balance and alternative indicators of cyclical conditions for the euro area and 18 OECD countries over the period 1970-2009. A countercyclical stance of discretionary fiscal policy is found during bad times after 1999 in the euro area as a whole and in a few member countries only (France, Ireland and The Netherlands). It is also associated with high public deficits or low public debts. There is no significant case of procyclical fiscal policy after 1999, neither in good times nor in bad times.

We derive conditions such that optimal liquidity provisions through a demand deposit scheme can be sustainably implemented in a subgame perfect Nash equilibrium under the assumption that renegade investors have free access to ex post asset markets. As our qualitative main finding we demonstrate that such sustainability is more likely for ‘poor’ than for ‘rich’ scheme participants in terms of future income. By establishing sustainability for low future income populations, our formal analysis therefore offers an important qualification of Jacklin’s (1987) influential claim that an optimal demand deposit scheme is not sustainable whenever there exists the possibility of an ex post asset market.