The Legacy of the Eurocrisis and how to

overcome it

Paul De GrauweLondon School of Economics

Eurozone split into creditor and debtor

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• Creditor nations have imposed their rule: Thou shall repay thy debt

• In order to achieve this, austerity rule is imposed

• This has created asymmetric adjustment mechanism where most of the adjustment has been borne by the debtor nations

• Without compensating stimulus by the creditor nations

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• Asymmetric adjustment mechanism has created deflationary bias in the Eurozone

• Leading to significant poorer economic developments in Eurozone as compared to rest of developed economies

Stagnation in Eurozone

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Increasing unemployment

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Increasing savings as a result of austerity

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Deflation threat

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• Most striking feature of legacy of Eurocrisis is that despite intense austerity programs that have been triggered since 2010

• there is no evidence that these programs have increased the capacity of the governments of the debtor countries to continue to service their debt

• On the contrary: deflation makes it harder to reduce debt burdens

Secular stagnation increases debt burdens

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Figure 4: Gross government debt to GDP ratio

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• It is my contention that a more symmetric fiscal adjustment (creditor nations stimulate their economies)

• would have reduced the price the periphery had to pay (in terms of lost output) to achieve a given improvement in their government budget balances.

Fallacy of composition• The imposition of austerity programs in the Eurozone

has been victim of the “fallacy of composition”. • What works for one nation fails to work when

everybody applies the same policies. • When one nation is forced to deleverage through

austerity (i.e. is trying to save more) this may work when it is alone to do so.

• When, however, all the countries try to save more at the same time, i.e. they all attempt to create current account surpluses, each country’s attempt to do so makes it harder for the others to achieve their objectives, forcing them to increase their austerity efforts.

• In the end, they are not more successful but GDP will be lower everywhere.

Eurozone undermines legitimacy of governments

• Austerity undermines legitimacy of governments that entered Eurozone with mandate to provide some protection against booms and busts of capitalism

• This mandate is being eroded.• At the same time austerity has weakened

capacity of governments to service their debts

• Sooner or later political systems in periphery will crack under the burden

• Especially when it is recognized that the benefits of austerity are for the rich creditor nations,

• Success of Syriza and Podemos is direct result of this failed policy

Options for the future

1. Solving legacy of eurocrisiso Debt restructuringo Debt monetization?

2. Correcting for design failures

Solving legacy problem

• legacy of the crisis has led to unsustainable debt levels

• Debt default (restructuring) in a number of countries will be inevitable

• Only issue: when?

• Rational solution dictates that creditor nations accept a loss now (after all they are equally responsible for the mess)

• Unlikely to happen • Large part of claims are now in public

handso In many Northern countries, Manichean views of

good and evil prevail, leading to an emotional desire that evil be punished.

o This attitude makes it difficult for politicians in these countries to choose the rational outcome that would increase economic welfare for everybody.

Eurozone’s design failures: in a

nutshell

1. Dynamics of booms and busts are endemic in capitalism o continued to work at national level and monetary

union in no way disciplined these into a union-wide dynamics.

o On the contrary the monetary union probably exacerbated these national booms and busts.

2. Stabilizers that existed at national level were stripped away from the member-states without being transposed at the monetary union level. o This left the member states “naked” and fragile,

unable to deal with the coming disturbances.

3. Deadly embrace sovereign and banks

Let me expand on these points.

Design failure IBooms and bust dynamics: national

• In Eurozone money is fully centralized• All the rest of macroeconomic policies is organized at

national level• Thus booms and busts are not constrained by the fact

that a monetary union exists. • As a result, these booms and busts originate at the

national level, not at the Eurozone level, and can have a life of their own for quite some time.

• At some point though when the boom turns into a bust, the implications for the rest of the union become acute

•

Design failure II: no stabilizers left in place

• Lender of last resort existed in each member country at national level.

• Absence of lender of last resort in government bond market in Eurozone

• exposed fragility of government bond market in a monetary union

• Self-fulfilling crises pushing countries into bad equilibria

How to redesign the Eurozone

• Role of ECB• Coordination of macroeconomic

policies in the Eurozone• Political Union

oBanking Uniono Fiscal Union

The common central bank as lender of last resort

Liquidity crises are avoided in stand-alone countries that issue debt in their own currencies mainly because central bank will provide all the necessary liquidity to sovereign.

This outcome can also be achieved in a monetary union if the common central bank is willing to buy the different sovereigns’ debt in times of crisis.

ECB has acted 2012

• On September 6, ECB announced it will buy unlimited amounts of government bonds.

• Program is called “Outright Monetary Transactions” (OMT)

• Success was spectacular

Success OMT-program

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• This was the right step: the ECB saved the Eurozone

• But then ECB waited too long to stop deflationary dynamics

• Only in January 2015 did it act to fight deflation• QE-programme: monthly purchase of €60 billion

until at least Sept 2016: planned increase in balance sheet (money base) = €1 trillion

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• Note QE implies monetization of part of the government debt o This should relax budget constraints of

national governments• It is structured in such a way that there

are almost no fiscal transfers (no pooling of risks)

• Because the bonds are kept on balance sheets of national central banks

Governance issue of OMT

• The European Central Bank’s power has increased significantly as a result of the sovereign debt crisis.

• With the announcement of the OMT program it has become clear that the ECB is the ultimate guarantor of the sovereign debt in the Eurozone.

• In this sense the ECB has become a central bank like the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England.

• There is one important difference though.

Democratic legitimacy of OMT

• The ECB consists of unelected officials, while governments are populated by elected officials.

• It is inconceivable that these governments will accept to be pushed into insolvency while unelected officials in Frankfurt have the power to prevent this but refuse to use this power.

• When tested such a model of the governance of the Eurozone will collapse and rightly so.

Conundrum

• The role of the ECB as a lender of last resort is essential to keep the Eurozone afloat.

• Yet at the same time the present governance of this crucial lender of last resort function is unsustainableo because its use depends on the goodwill

of the ECB, o thereby making democratically legitimate

governments’ fate depend on the judgment of unelected officials.

• In order to sustain this role of the central bank as a lender of last resort it has to be made subordinate to the political power of elected officials, o as it is in modern democracies such as the US,

Sweden, the UK, etc. • This can only be achieved by creating a Eurozone

government o that is backed by a European parliament o and that has primacy over the central bank.

• Until then the Eurozone remains fragile which will reflect itself in volatility in the government bond markets.

Coordination of macroeconomic policies

• Macroeconomic imbalance procedure strengthening the coordination of macroeconomic policies have been adopted and are being put into place. o the monitoring of a number of macroeconomic

variables • current account balances, • competitiveness measures, • house prices• bank credit

o aimed at detecting and redressing national macroeconomic imbalances;

However• This procedure is being implemented in an

asymmetric way• Deficit countries experience much more pressure to

act, i.e. to reduce spending than surplus countries• Competitiveness measures have same problem

o This leads to downward pressure on wages• Deflationary bias is not solved• The creditor countries prevail• Creating political problems• And rejection of system in which European

Commission is seen to defend interests of creditor nations and remains unaccountable

Que faire?

• Policy mix should be: oMonetary and fiscal expansion

• ECB has started QE• Fiscal policy should focus on public

investment• Why?• It is one of the major victims of ill-advised

macroeconomic policies in Eurozone

Austerity programs led to strong decline in public investment

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• Leading to less aggregate demand today • And less supply in the future• Thus, start public investments• These can be initiated everywhere, • but especially in Germany, a country that

can borrow almost for free

Throw away dogmas

• We have to free ourselves of dogmas• One such dogma: balanced budget, i.e. no bond

financing of investmentso All investments should be financed by current

revenueo No well run company follows such a rule

• Result of this idea is that governments are reducing their responsibility to provide essential public goods (infrastructure, energy investments, environmental investments)

• This reduces long-term growth of the Eurozone

Juncker Plan

• the Juncker plan is not a sufficient response

• It also reflects the unwillingness to use public money for public investment projects.

• How can it hope that private sector will want to step in.

Towards a political union

Two components of political union are necessary

oBanking Uniono Fiscal Union

Banking Union

• Banking Union is key in resolving the deadly embrace between sovereign and banks

• Three components:1. Common supervision2. Common deposit insurance3. Common resolution

• Common supervision starts now with ECB as the common supervisor of the large banks (covering 85% of bank activities in Eurozone)

• No decision on common deposit insurance• First steps towards common resolution

o Common resolution fund will be built up gradually to reach €55 billion

o This is clearly insufficiento Governance of resolution is so complicated as

to be impractical in times of crisis

Bail-in provisions• Bail-in provisions have been inspired by political

considerations: • bank crisis should not be resolved using

taxpayers’ moneyo Bail-in provisions work when crisis is limited to

small number of bankso They fail when crisis is systemic: in that case

liquidity freezes and governments have to step ino Bail-in provisions can in fact trigger crisis as it will

more easily lead to runs to exit

• Banking union goes in the right direction• But much more will have to be done to make it

effective• Common resolution mechanism is too weak and

will not make speedy decisions possible in times of crisis

• As a result, common supervisor (ECB) will be weak

Fiscal union

• Only governance that can be sustained in the Eurozone is one where a Eurozone government backed by a European parliament acquires the power to tax and to spend.

• Put differently, the Eurozone can only be sustained if it is embedded in a fiscal and political union.

Fiscal union has two dimensions

1. consolidation of national government debts. o consolidation creates a common fiscal authority

that can issue debt in a currency under the control of that authority.

o This protects the member states from being forced into default by financial markets.

o This restores the balance of power in favour of the sovereign and against the financial markets

o Governance structure is created in which the (European) sovereign prevails over the central bank and European bureaucratic institutions rather than the other way around.

2. mechanism of automatic transferso Such a mechanism works as an insurance

transferring resources to the country hit by a negative economic shock.

o There are limits to such an insurance that arise from moral hazard risk,

o But it remains true that such a mechanism is essential for the survival of a monetary union, like it is for the survival of a nation state.

o Without a minimum of solidarity (that’s what insurance is) no union can survive.

• All this is well known. • It is equally clear that the willingness

today to move in the direction of a fiscal union in Europe today is non-existent.

• This fact will continue to make the Eurozone a fragile institution,

•

Conclusion

• The long run success of the Eurozone depends on the continuing process of political unification.

• Such a political unification is needed because eurozone has dramatically weakened the power and legitimacy of nation states without creating a nation at the European level.

• This cannot last• The eurocrisis is not over