In 2010, the 2008 global financial crisis morphed into the
“eurocrisis.” It has not abated. The 19 countries of Europe that share
the euro currency—the eurozone—have been rocked by economic stagnation
and debt crises. Some countries have been in depression for years while
the governing powers of the eurozone have careened from emergency to
emergency, most notably in Greece.
In The Euro, Nobel
Prize–winning economist and best-selling author Joseph E. Stiglitz
dismantles the prevailing consensus around what ails Europe, demolishing
the champions of austerity while offering a series of plans that can
rescue the continent—and the world—from further devastation.
Hailed
by its architects as a lever that would bring Europe together and
promote prosperity, the euro has done the opposite. As Stiglitz
persuasively argues, the crises revealed the shortcomings of the euro.
Europe’s stagnation and bleak outlook are a direct result of the
fundamental challenges in having a diverse group of countries share a
common currency—the euro was flawed at birth, with economic integration
outpacing political integration. Stiglitz shows how the current
structure promotes divergence rather than convergence. The question then
is: Can the euro be saved?
After laying bare the European Central
Bank’s misguided inflation-only mandate and explaining how eurozone
policies, especially toward the crisis countries, have further exposed
the zone’s flawed design, Stiglitz outlines three possible ways forward:
fundamental reforms in the structure of the eurozone and the policies
imposed on the member countries; a well-managed end to the
single-currency euro experiment; or a bold, new system dubbed the
“flexible euro.”
With its lessons for globalization in a world economy ever more deeply connected, The Euro is urgent and essential reading.
Boktitel: The Euro. How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe Författare: Joseph E. Stiglitz Bokförlag: W. W. Norton & Company
Joseph E. Stiglitz
Joseph E. Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize–winning economist and the best-selling author of The Great Divide, Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy, The Price of Inequality, Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy, and Globalization and Its Discontents. He is a columnist for the New York Times and Project Syndicate and has written for Vanity Fair, Politico, The Atlantic, and Harper’s. He teaches at Columbia University and lives in New York City.