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This book offers a critical assessment of the history of the euro, its crisis, and the rescue measures taken by the European Central Bank and the community of states. The euro induced huge capital flows from the northern to the southern countries of the Eurozone that triggered an inflationary credit bubble in the latter, deprived them of their competitiveness, and made them vulnerable to the financial crisis that spilled over from the US in 2007 and 2008. As private capital shied away from the southern countries, the ECB helped out by providing credit from the local money-printing presses. The ECB became heavily exposed to investment risks in the process, and subsequently had to be bailed out by intergovernmental rescue operations that provided replacement credit for the ECB credit, which itself had replaced the dwindling private credit. The interventions stretched the legal structures stipulated by the Maastricht Treaty which, in the absence of a European federal state, had granted the ECB a very limited mandate. These interventions created a path dependency that effectively made parliaments vicarious agents of the ECB's Governing Council.
This book describes what the author considers to be a dangerous political process that undermines both the market economy and democracy, without solving southern Europe's competitiveness problem. It argues that the Eurozone has to rethink its rules of conduct by limiting the role of the ECB, exiting the regime of soft budget constraints and writing off public and bank debt to help the crisis countries breathe again. At the same time, the Eurosystem should become more flexible by offering its members the option of exiting and re-entering the euro - something between the dollar and the Bretton Woods system - until it eventually turns into a federation with a strong political power centre and a uniform currency like the dollar.
List of contents
- Introduction
- 1: Wish and Reality
- 2: Bubbles in the Periphery
- 3: The Other Side of the Coin
- 4: The Competitiveness Problem
- 5: The White Knight
- 6: The European Balance-of-Payments Crisis
- 7: Current Accounts, Capital Flight, and Target Balances
- 8: Stumbling Along
- 9: Rethinking the Eurosystem
About the author
Hans-Werner Sinn ist seit 1984 Ordinarius in der volkswirtschaftlichen Fakultät der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München und seit 1991 Direktor des dortigen Center for Economic Studies (CES). Nach zahlreichen abgelehnten Rufen u.a. auf ein Max-Planck-Institut wurde er 1999 Präsident des ifo Instituts für Wirtschaftsforschung in München und Geschäftsführer der CESifo GmbH, die eine gemeinsame Initiative der LMU und des ifo Instituts ist. Er ist Autor zahlreicher Bücher und Fachartikel sowie ein gefragter Gesprächspartner in Medien und Politik.
Summary
This book offers a critical assessment of the history of the euro, its crisis, and the rescue measures taken by the European Central Bank and the community of states.
Additional text
In this trenchant analysis of Europes recent economic experience, Hans-Werner Sinn conducts a post-mortem for the Euro as an ambitious political gambit that has failed to overcome bad incentives and missing institutions. His forensic investigation uncovers staggering fiscal commitments that have been made through the conduct of monetary policy and without the explicit recognition or approval of those on whom the burdens will fall. Sinn issues a call to action, making a compelling case that the most important obstacle on the path to European stability and prosperity is a system that is illogical and unsustainable. This excellent book virtually compels a response from those who would substitute hope for facts in their defense of the Euro and its prospects.
Report
This detailed, heavily footnoted book by prominent German economist Sinn (Univ. of Munich) assesses the euro and the ongoing concerns about the economies of the euro-zone countries. He provides considerable data, often on individual countries (e.g., Greece, Ireland, Spain, and Italy), and retains a clear point of view on what occurred and why. J. E. Weaver, Drake University, CHOICE
