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Flexibility versus Stability
Report

Flexibility versus Stability

A Difficult Trade-Off in the Eurozone

CEPS, 2016

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

The euro zone faces considerable economic and monetary pressures as the bloc recovers from the lingering effects of the financial and sovereign debt crises. European Union policy makers have exhorted struggling euro members to implement structural reforms in labor and product markets, according to the prescriptions of the economic theory on optimal currency areas. However, economists Paul De Grauwe and Yuemei Ji argue that those prescriptions may not apply to the economic and fiscal issues facing the euro zone. getAbstract recommends this timely and astute analysis of European policy options to economists, policy makers and analysts.

Take-Aways

  • Euro-area policy makers are promoting structural reforms to add flexibility to national labor and product markets, following the dictates of optimal currency area theory.
  • This theory, however, only holds when “asymmetric shocks” arise from external factors and when their impacts last indefinitely.
  • The temporary jolts of the typical business cycle require a policy response focused on ensuring stability rather than flexibility.

About the Authors

Paul de Grauwe is a professor of international economics at the London School of Economics. Yuemei Ji is a lecturer at University College London.