Bad for Euroland, worse for Germany: the ECB's record

Arbeitspapier

This paper assesses the contribution of the European Central Bank (ECB) to Germany's ongoing economic crisis, a vicious circle of decline in which the country has become stuck since the early 1990s. It is argued that the ECB continues the Bundesbank tradition of asymmetric policymaking: the bank is quick to hike, but slow to ease. It thereby acts as a brake on growth. This approach has worked for the Bundesbank in the past because other banks behaved differently. Exporting the Bundesbank success story to Euroland has undermined its working, however; given its sheer size, Euroland simply cannot freeload on external stimuli forever. While Euroland cannot do without proper demand management, the Maastricht regime and especially the ECB are firmly geared against it. The ECB's monetary policies have been biased against growth and have thus proved bad for Euroland as a whole. Meanwhile, the German disease of protracted domestic demand weakness has spread across much of Euroland. Yet, by pursuing its peculiar traditions of wage restraint and procyclical public thrift, the ECB's policies have had even worse results for Germany. Fragility and divergence undermine the euro's longterm survival.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: Working Paper ; No. 429

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Price Level; Inflation; Deflation ; Monetary Systems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System; Payment Systems ; Central Banks and Their Policies ; Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination ; Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy ; Studies of Particular Policy Episodes ; General Outlook and Conditions ; National Deficit; Surplus
• Thema: German unification ; Bundesbank ; policy inconsistency ; stability culture ; ECB ; EMU

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Bibow, Jörg
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Levy Economics Institute of Bard College
• (wo): Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
• (wann): 2005

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/31601
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:42 MEZ