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OPINIONDECEMBER 13, 2011
The Euro Zone's German Crisis
Blame Teutonic efficiency for what ails Europe. The other countries just can't compete.
By ALAN S. BLINDER
All financial eyes are fixed on the euro. Europe's common currency actually has two gigantic problems. The debt and banking crisis hogs all the attention because of its immediacy, plus the high drama of all those summit meetings. But the other, slower-acting problem—lopsided competitiveness within the euro zone—is far more intractable.
First, the immediate problem. The euro was an audacious venture that put the cart before many horses. The fundamental problem is that the euro zone is not a country. Initially 11, and now 17, sovereign nations signed up for a currency union without first homogenizing their budget policies, their tax systems, their bank regulations or much else. And they did so without creating a central government strong enough to, for example, impose cross-border discipline or finance large cross-country transfers. To use an American analogy recently promoted by Nobel laureate and New York University economist Thomas Sargent, the 17 have been trying to fix their debt and banking problems under the equivalent of the Articles of Confederation, not the Constitution.
The great pitcher Lefty Gomez once said he'd rather be lucky than good. In order to succeed in their audacious gamble, the euro-zone countries would have to be both. And for about a decade, they were. But luck has a way of running out. What economists antiseptically call "asymmetric shocks" are the Achilles' heel of a currency union—and they are bound to occur now and then. In plain English, if some countries do well (and/or pursue sound policies) while others do poorly (and/or pursue unsound policies), locking them into a single currency will squeeze some countries like an increasingly uncomfortable Procrustean bed. In this case, Procrustes claimed Greece first over the issue of sovereign debt. But it could have been something else and somewhere else.
Normally, a weak economy has three ways to fight back. It can loosen monetary policy, it can loosen fiscal policy, or it can let its currency depreciate. (If the currency is floating, the market will do this automatically.) But membership in the euro zone forecloses two of these escape hatches, leaving only fiscal policy. And once a member country stretches its borrowing capacity to the limit—as Greece did—that route is closed, too. Then what happens?
One answer is playing out now as a Greek tragedy: You have a depression. And if neither monetary stimulus, fiscal stimulus, nor currency depreciation is possible, when does this depression end? It may take quite a while. Real GDP in Greece is already down about 12% and still falling—which is why you've heard so much talk about Greece leaving the euro. Of course, what happened in Greece didn't stay in Greece. Markets started turning on the other wounded antelopes in the European herd: Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Italy and so on.
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Chad Crowe
Europe continues to try to stave off disaster. In the latest summit agreement, reached last Friday, all 17 euro-zone countries, plus several others, pledged to pursue fiscal discipline—with tighter enforcement than previously. But that agreement is more about forestalling future crises than curing the present one. And fiscal austerity all over Europe, if it comes, will deepen the recession. So we hold our breath and await salvation from the European Central Bank (ECB) in the form of potentially massive bond purchases.
That's the easy problem. The euro-zone's other, barely mentioned but huge problem is competitiveness. It's far more basic and looks less solvable than the sovereign debt problem.
To see why, remember the two fundamental determinants of exchange rates: (1) productivity in different countries—so, other things equal, faster productivity growth should lead to a rising exchange rate; and (2) prices and wages in different countries—so lower inflation should lead to a rising exchange rate. Thus, for a currency union to succeed, its member nations need to register approximately equal productivity growth and approximately equal wage and price inflation.
How has the euro zone fared on this score? In principle, the ECB's common monetary policy should (approximately) equalize inflation rates across all the member countries. In practice, it hasn't. You won't be surprised to learn that, since the start of the euro, Germany has had the lowest rate of inflation among the major countries, followed closely by France. The highest inflation rates have been in Greece and Spain. While these inflation differentials are not gigantic, they are large enough to strain a system of fixed exchange rates.
The other part of the equation is worse. When it comes to productivity, Germany has simply pulled away from the pack. Partly because of thorough-going labor-market reforms in the last decade, and partly because it's, well, Germany, Europe's powerhouse economy has achieved vastly higher productivity growth than its euro partners. Since 2000, German unit labor costs have risen about 20%-30% less than unit labor costs in the other euro countries. That gap has left Germany with a large intra-Europe trade surplus while most other countries run deficits.
If we were talking about China, at this point we would accuse the Chinese of manipulating their currency to gain an "unfair" trade advantage. But, of course, Germany has not manipulated anything. It has acquired a seriously undervalued currency by locking into fixed exchange rates with Greece, Spain, Italy and the others.
There are three ways for the other countries to close the gap with Germany—and remember, the gap is large. First, Germany can volunteer for higher inflation than its euro partners by, for example, implementing a large fiscal stimulus or ending its wage restraint. How do you say "ain't gonna happen" in German?
Second, the other countries can engineer German-like productivity miracles through structural reforms while Germany, relatively speaking, stands still. Good luck with that. And even if it somehow happens, the timing is all wrong. Reforms take years to bear fruit while financial markets count time in seconds.
Third, the other countries can experience deflation, meaning a prolonged decline in both wages and prices, which is incredibly difficult and painful—and generally happens only in protracted recessions. Sadly, this may be the most likely way out.
Thus the euro zone has a big, visible Greek problem, which is a result of failure. But it also has a far bigger, though less visible, German problem, which is a result of success.
Wish them well.
Mr. Blinder, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University, is a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve.