Edward Harrison points to a Randall Wray post about MMT, sovereign debt crisis in Eurozone.
Randall refers to difference in location of monetary policy, within the sovereign in case of UK and outside the sovereign in case of France (with ECB), leading to reduced risk of default. Randall refers to this as one main source of problems of the Eurozone.
However, Euro area is not the only problem. When it comes to difference between where monetary policy is located and where fiscal policy is located, we have two examples of this model operating currently- Euro model and US-China model. Both are at risk, different risk, but definitely at risk.
In principle, US-China model has a similar monetary-fiscal policy situation to Euro area. US sets the monetary policy and that policy trickles down to set of countries that peg their currencies to US Dollar. I have only used China as representative, in reality many more countries peg their currencies to USD and this group is bigger than the Euro-group.[1]
The issues is if you have given up monetary sovereignty, you are eventually forced to give up broad level fiscal sovereignty as well. So a system where monetary policy is regional, you must have a regional fiscal policy at least at a broad level. It all boils down to congruence between fiscal and monetary policy.
The persistence with this monetary-fiscal distortion polarizes the participants creating a production pole and consumption pole. In case of Euro area, we have Germany and Greece as representative poles. In case of US-China model the respective poles are China and US.
Now the difference is Germany, the production pole, has larger influence over monetary policy[2] in Eurozone while its corresponding pole China, has no say in policy of US.
Randall refers to difference in location of monetary policy, within the sovereign in case of UK and outside the sovereign in case of France (with ECB), leading to reduced risk of default. Randall refers to this as one main source of problems of the Eurozone.
However, Euro area is not the only problem. When it comes to difference between where monetary policy is located and where fiscal policy is located, we have two examples of this model operating currently- Euro model and US-China model. Both are at risk, different risk, but definitely at risk.
In principle, US-China model has a similar monetary-fiscal policy situation to Euro area. US sets the monetary policy and that policy trickles down to set of countries that peg their currencies to US Dollar. I have only used China as representative, in reality many more countries peg their currencies to USD and this group is bigger than the Euro-group.[1]
The issues is if you have given up monetary sovereignty, you are eventually forced to give up broad level fiscal sovereignty as well. So a system where monetary policy is regional, you must have a regional fiscal policy at least at a broad level. It all boils down to congruence between fiscal and monetary policy.
The persistence with this monetary-fiscal distortion polarizes the participants creating a production pole and consumption pole. In case of Euro area, we have Germany and Greece as representative poles. In case of US-China model the respective poles are China and US.
Now the difference is Germany, the production pole, has larger influence over monetary policy[2] in Eurozone while its corresponding pole China, has no say in policy of US.
In the US-China case, US does not seem to have a problem. But actually it does. The model requires the China-group to keep buying US treasuries. This allows US more monetary policy room but forces these countries to absorb, either through government or overseas investment, this impact. It masks the problems of US till one fine day US suffers a heart attack. Further imagine the policy environment if Greece ran the policy in Eurozone. I won't go into more detail here but suffice to say this model is equally broken.
Notes:
- Euro as a group, single entity, also has a similar arrangement. Here Euro-group occupies the position of US and few countries peg their currencies to Euro. In addition, Euro is also influenced by its value with respect to USD. It is sort of a complex fractal. We will leave aside these complications for the moment.
- Apologies to those who believe monetary policy is truly independent. And, of course - there is no Santa Claus - it was your parents all along.
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