IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sdo/regaec/v21y2012iex_5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Strange Case of the Attack on the Euro Area: Who Is To Blame?

Author

Listed:
  • Afonso, Óscar
  • Henrique Alves, Rui

Abstract

In recent months, the euro area has been under fire from the financial markets, speculators being blamed for the mounting of a kind of conspiracy whose ultimate goal would be the disintegration of the project's Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). In this paper, we discuss the true reasons of this situation with reference to four issues which the debate remains open since the early 90s: nominal convergence versus real convergence, need –or not– for the coordination of fiscal policies, adjustment mechanisms to specific shocks and the theory of optimum currency areas, and need –or not– for further progress in political integration. Using data on the Portuguese case, we argue that, on several of these topics, the present framework of the EMU still reveals many weaknesses, which would underpin the current unstable situation. In this context, we present some suggestions for strengthening the euro area, particularly in terms of its economic governance.

Suggested Citation

  • Afonso, Óscar & Henrique Alves, Rui, 2012. "The Strange Case of the Attack on the Euro Area: Who Is To Blame?," Revista Galega de Economía, University of Santiago de Compostela. Faculty of Economics and Business., vol. 21(ex).
  • Handle: RePEc:sdo:regaec:v:21:y:2012:i:ex_5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.usc.es/econo/RGE/Vol21_ex/castelan/art5c.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sdo:regaec:v:21:y:2012:i:ex_5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Marisa Chas-Amil (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feusces.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.