Research Papers

Greece and the Euro: A Mundellian Tragedy

Date: 19/04/2019Author: George Alogoskoufis 0 Comments

This paper analyzes the process of destabilization, crisis and adjustment in the Greek economy since the accession of the country to the European Union and, subsequently, the euro area. It reviews four policy cycles of the past 40 years, the four acts of the Greek tragedy, and discusses alternative ways forward, following the sudden stop and the great depression of the 2010s. It concludes that despite the significant constraints implied by continued participation in the euro area, namely a stark Mundellian conflict between internal and external balance, exiting the euro area risks further destabilizing the economy and bringing about a return of the problems of the 1980s. The current challenge for Greece is to seek to remain and prosper in the euro area. This would require a policy mix based on supply side reforms which would allow for a sustained recovery without the reemergence of external imbalances.

This paper was presented to the Tufts/LSE Conference on Greece and the Euro: From Crisis to Recovery on April 12, 2019, and has been issued as a Karamanlis Chair Working Paper at the Fletcher School, Tufts University and a GreeSE Paper at the Hellenic Observatory, London School of Economics.

George Alogoskoufis, Greece and the Euro: A Mundellian Tragedy
CGK Working Paper no. 2019-01, Fletcher School, Tufts University (April 2019)

George Alogoskoufis, Greece and the Euro: A Mundellian Tragedy, GreeSE Paper no. 136, Hellenic Observatory, London School of Economics (May 2019)

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The origins of the post-2010 Greek crisis and the pre-conditions – economic, political and institutional - for a sustained recovery of the Greek economy were examined recently by a number of prominent academics, many of whom possess extensive political experience in Greece. A selection of their contributions, first presented in a workshop at the London School of Economics, in December 2018, and a conference at the Fletcher School of Tufts University in April 2019, is collected in this e- book, edited by the organisers, George Alogoskoufis and Kevin Featherstone. With ramifications for both Greece and the Euro-Area as a whole, the contributions consider the constraints that derive from the structural linkages between the domestic and the European levels. While concerned with the core economic agenda, they place it within its political, social, and institutional contexts in order to have a more complete assessment. They ask what scope there is for recovery, the priorities that need to be set, and the prospects for their attainment. Many of the chapters have been updated to take into account developments since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. More details on the 2018 workshop and the 2019 conference that led to this e-book can be found in the link below.

This book from the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) deals with the implications of the exchange rate regimes and capital flows of the 1990s for government macroeconomic policy-making and EC policy co-ordination. Under the fixed exchange rates of the 1950s, economists and policy-makers had a much clearer idea of the nature of the external constraints. The commitment to defending the exchange rate is stronger in the 1990s than in the 1970s and 1980s, but at the same time international capital flows are far greater and freer than in the 1950s and 1960s, with many countries able to borrow almost indefinitely and on good terms on the Eurodollar market in order to finance their balance-of-payments deficits. This volume, derived from a conference organised jointly by CEPR and the Bank of Greece, deals with these issues in depth and includes both cross-country comparisons and case studies of individual countries.

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