I thought I’d take a break from Brexit and Trump, and write a Critical Quarterly column about the Euro for a change. The main point I take from it now, a few months after writing it, is that we should stop teaching our students that if a currency union faces shocks that are symmetric, rather than asymmetric, then there is no problem. The post-2008 experience teaches us that free rider problems and ideology can lead to very sub-optimal responses even to symmetric shocks.
One reply on “The Euro”
Are students being taught that the credit crunch/financial crisis was a symmetric shock for the members of the Euro?