August 18, 2009
EMU needs an external stability pact
In our new contribution for Project Syndicate, we argue that the European Monetary Union needs a new stability pact which limits not government budgets, but imbalances in the current accounts of the member states. In such a pact, both deficit and surplus countries would be required to use their fiscal and general economic policies to strive for a rebalancing. If countries are uncooperative, they would be fined. In this way, dangerous trends of external indebtness for single countries can be limited as well as excessive beggar-thy-neighbor policies through revaluation limited.
Read the full column at the Project Syndicate Website here.
There is also a longer policy paper on the issue which has just been published at the Stiftung Wissenschaft and Politik and can be accessed here.