With governments reaching their presumed debt limits, some commentators are calling on the European Central Bank (ECB) to bear the costs of additional bailouts. The ECB is now treading a dangerous path. It feels compelled to provide adequate “liquidity” to avert systemic financial collapse, yet must presumably limit its activities in order to prevent a loss of confidence in the euro—i.e., a change in market and political sentiment that could lead to a rapid breakup of the euro area
Five measures are needed to enable the euro area to survive: (1) an immediate program to deal with excessive sovereign debt, (2) far more aggressive plans to reduce budget deficits and make peripheral nations “hypercompetitive” in the near future, (3) supportive monetary policy from the ECB, (4) the introduction of mechanisms that credibly achieve long-term fiscal sustainability, and (5) institutional change that reduces the scope for excessive leverage and consequent instability in the financial sector.
All die genannten Lösungsvorschläge der Autoren stehen im Moment im Brennpunkt der Debatten über geld- und fiskalpolitische Maßnahmen. Boone und Johnson liefern eine ganze Menge Denkanstöße und Datenmaterial, doch ihre Schlussfolgerungen werden sicherlich nicht von allen geteilt werden:
At the least, we expect several more sovereign defaults and multiple further crises to plague Europe in the next several years. There is simply too much debt, and adjustment programs are too slow to prevent it. But this prediction implies that the long-term social costs, including unemployment and recessions rather than growth, attributable to this currency union are serious. Sometimes it is easier to make these adjustments through flexible exchange rates, and we certainly would have seen more rapid recovery if peripheral nations had the leeway to use exchange rates. When we combine multiple years of stagnation with leveraged financial institutions and nervous financial markets, a rapid shift from low-level crisis to collapse is very plausible. European leaders could take measures to reduce this risk (through further actions on sovereign debt restructurings, more aggressive economic adjustment, and increased bailout funds). However, so far, there is little political will to take these necessary measures. Europe’s economy remains, therefore, in a dangerous state.
Doch auch wenn man die Einschätzungen von Boone und Johnson nicht teilen sollte, lohnt es sich dennoch, das Paper zu lesen.
