How Germany’s anti-Keynesianism has brought Europe to its knees

This paper investigates the (lack of any lasting) impact of John Maynard Keynes’s General Theory on economic policy-making in Germany. The analysis highlights the interplay between economic history and the history of ideas in shaping policy-making in postwar (West) Germany. The paper argues that Germany learned the wrong lessons from its own history and misread the true sources of its postwar success. Monetary mythology and the Bundesbank, with its distinctive anti-inflationary bias, feature prominently in this collective odyssey. The analysis shows that the crisis of the euro today is largely the consequence of Germany’s peculiar anti-Keynesianism.     

The Euroland crisis and Germany’s euro trilemma

This paper investigates the causes behind the Euroland crisis, particularly Germany’s role in it. It is argued that the crisis is not primarily a ‘sovereign debt crisis’, but rather a (twin) banking and balance of payments crisis. Intra-area competitiveness and current account imbalances, and the corresponding debt flows that such imbalances give rise to, are at the heart of the matter, and they ultimately go back to competitive wage restraint on Germany’s part since the late 1990s. Germany broke the golden rule of a monetary union: commitment to a common inflation rate. As a result, the country faces a trilemma of its own making and must make a critical choice, since it cannot have it all – perpetual export surpluses, a no transfer/no bailout monetary union, and a ‘clean,’ independent central bank. Misdiagnosis and the wrongly prescribed medication of austerity have made the situation worse by adding a growth crisis to the potpourri of internal stresses that threaten the euro’s survival. The crisis in Euroland poses a global ‘too big to fail’ threat, and presents a moral hazard of perhaps unprecedented scale to the global community.     

货币危机与银行危机共生因子实证分析——国别比较的视角

共生危机的事实表明,货币危机与银行危机共生的现象在不同类型的国家均可能出现,而非某一类国家所特有的现象.基于对共生性货币银行危机触发机制国别差异的考察,文章在对1980～2006年间60个国家共生危机发生情况识别的基础上,分别构建了工业化国家和发展中国家共生危机生成的逐步Logistic回归模型.研究表明,工业化国家的共生危机主要是经济中各类矛盾累积的结果,发展中国家则主要源于本国制度缺陷,而采用滞后一期的变量来解释工业化国家共生危机时,效果不显著.     

希腊债务危机对欧洲认同的影响分析

希腊债务危机引发了欧洲认同危机：欧元信用受到质疑、在救助希腊问题上欧盟成员国的意见分歧、欧洲民众对欧元的信心动摇和欧盟的救助无力等因素弱化了欧洲认同。欧洲货币联盟的结构性缺陷、希腊债务危机中欧盟成员国对国家利益的维护和民族认同的差异是其主要原因。消除希腊债务危机对欧洲认同负面影响的出路在于缩小欧元区成员国的经济差距、加强成员国之间的团结和合作、建立欧元区财政合作机制、增强欧盟层面的领导力,并在此过程中强化欧洲认同。     

论银行体系在货币投机攻击中的融资角色

20世纪末爆发于东南亚国家的金融危机给该地区乃至整个世界经济都造成了严重的损失。危机之后一些学者对于该地区银行的经营业绩与危机之间的关系作了大量的研究,研究结果表明经营状况较差的银行体系往往会诱发货币危机的爆发。本文在前人研究的基础上独辟蹊径,论述了一国良好的银行体系在投机性货币攻击中所扮演的角色,进而提出了对一国国内信贷量进行控制的政策操作建议。     

On the benefits of fiscal policy coordination in a currency union: a note

It is quite often claimed by politicians that a common currency makes it beneficial to be also endowed with a common fiscal policy. However, if fiscal policy can reasonably be considered to be a source of shocks, national fiscal policies which are steered independently from each other are generally preferable because they allow the possibility to diversify macroeconomic risks. Abstracting from automatic stabilizers, this view is valid independent on whether the ECB targets money growth or interest rates.

补充货币的理论、实践与启示——基于后危机时代的思考

补充货币作为官方货币的补充形式,具有异于官方货币的独特功能,为应对当前货币危机、失业、老龄化、环境污染等问题提供了有益的思考。文章在回顾补充货币的相关理论的基础上,考察了补充货币在不同时期的实践情况,提出补充货币对解决我国经济和社会问题的重要意义。     

Credit ratings and bond spreads of the GIIPS

We examine the relationship between credit ratings and bond yield spreads of peripheral countries in the euro area (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain) for the period 1995–2014. Since 2012, bond spreads of those countries have come down very fast, whereas credit ratings have hardly changed. Our results suggest that credit rating agencies have become more cautious and have changed their approach to assess credit risk of sovereigns, and that the impact of sovereign credit risk ratings on sovereign bond spreads has changed.     

欧债危机成因与前景的制度分析

希腊等欧元区国家的主权债务危机可以说是欧洲区域一体化建设中的独特现象,其折射的是欧元区所存在的一个结构性问题：奉行单一货币政策和各国分散的财政政策,集中暴露出了欧洲货币一体化与欧洲福利资本主义的不相容、以及统一货币运行所要求的财政紧缩与欧元成员国经济增长和福利制度之间的矛盾与冲突;欧元不会就此瓦解,但欧债问题的最终解决困难重重;欧元的未来取决于自由与市场的回归欧洲,取决于欧盟的制度完善与欧式福利资本主义改革的成功与否。     

Fiscal Institutions and Wage Bargaining in the Local Public Sector

In a theoretical analysis of the properties of different wage setting and financing systems in the local public sector, two financing systems are considered. A benchmark model with local financing through local taxes is compared with a system of centralized financing through grants, where taxes are decided at the national level. It is shown that the wage outcomes under centralized financing depend heavily on the order of moves in the budgetary game between the central and local levels.
JEL Classification : H 23; J 45