Towards a Resilient Eurozone

This book examines the Eurozone crisis and the possibility of fiscal and political union in Europe, with contributions from some of the most respected experts on these topics. The book explains the complex, multidimensional crises in competitiveness, fiscal matters, banking and politics. During the crisis Germany has been criticized for misjudging the causes, focusing too much on fiscal deficits and insisting that the solution is fiscal consolidation and austerity. For many, especially those inspired by Keynesian economics, Germany has been seen as pushing the whole continent into a depression. By misjudging the causes of the crisis, insisting on widespread austerity, constraining the European central Bank (ECB) in its role of Lender of Last Resort for the overeigns, rejecting the mutualization of Eurozone debt and providing financial help in small amounts and too late, Germany is perceived to be responsible for the possible break-up of the Eurozone. The aim of this book is to analyse whether this description, one that is shared by numerous policymakers, academics, pundits and opinion leaders, means that there is a lack of resilience in the Eurozone’s economic, monetary and fiscal policies.

Contents: John Ryan/John Loughlin: Historical Monetary Unions: Lessons for the current Eurozone Crisis – Lothar Funk: Towards a resilient EMU? The German-Inspired Response to the Euro Crisis Assessed – Michael Wohlgemuth: Is Germany’s Current Account Surplus «Unfair»? – Sebastián Royo: After Austerity: Lessons from the Spanish Experience – Heribert Dieter/Maria Krummenacher: Maastricht 2.0: Alternatives for Monetary Union beyond the Centralization Fetish – Jacob Kirkegaard: Closer Fiscal Policy among Eurozone Members – Mathias Dolls/Clemens Fuest/Dirk Neumann/Andreas Peichl: Fiscal Integration in the Eurozone: Economic Effects of Two Key Scenarios. Full table of contents