Europe's financial crisis cannot be blamed on the Euro, Harold James contends in this probing exploration of the whys, whens, whos, and what-ifs of European monetary union. The current crisis goes deeper, to a series of problems that were debated but not resolved at the time of the Euro's invention. Since the 1960s, Europeans had been looking for a way to address two conundrums simultaneously: the dollar's privileged position in the international monetary system, and Germany's persistent current account surpluses in Europe. The Euro was created under a politically independent central bank to meet the primary goal of price stability. But while the monetary side of union was clearly conceived, other prerequisites of stability were beyond the reach of technocratic central bankers. Issues such as fiscal rules and Europe-wide banking supervision and regulation were thoroughly discussed during planning in the late 1980s and 1990s, but remained in the hands of member states. That omission proved to be a cause of crisis decades later. Here is an account that helps readers understand the European monetary crisis in depth, by tracing behind-the-scenes negotiations using an array of sources unavailable until now, notably from the European Community's Committee of Central Bank Governors and the Delors Committee of 1988-89, which set out the plan for how Europe could reach its goal of monetary union. As this foundational study makes clear, it was the constant friction between politicians and technocrats that shaped the Euro. And, Euro or no Euro, this clash will continue into the future.

As Europe proceeds towards economic and monetary union, fiscal convergence and the prospect of a common money are at the centre of discussion. This volume from the Centre for Economic Policy Research brings together theoretical, applied and historical research on the management of public debt and its implications for financial stability. Gale fills a gap in the literature, using a consistent framework to investigate the welfare economics of public debt, while Calvo and Guidotti analyse the trade-off between indexation and maturity when it comes to minimizing debt service. Confidence crises have become relevant again in view of the high debt ratios in countries such as Belgium, Italy and Ireland. Alesina, Prati and Tabellini develop a formal model of the propagation of a debt run and use it to interpret Italian debt panics. Giavazzi and Pagano concentrate on how inappropriate debt management can precipitate a run on the currency while Makinen and Woodward review a broad sweep of historical experience.

This book from the Centre for Economic Policy Research collects theoretical, applied and historical research on the welfare economics of public debt; how inappropriate debt management can lead to funding crises; capital levies; debt consolidation; U.S. public debt history; political influences on debt accumulation; trade-offs between indexation and maturity; and confidence effects in a stochastic rational expectations framework.