The Euro-crisis: a to-do-list for the ECB

Abstract

To solve the twin European crises of bust banking systems and excessive sovereign debt, further European centralisation and transfer of sovereignty to Brussels or Frankfurt are not necessary. Indeed, such a policy fails to address the fundamental problem, which has been ignored by all crisis measures so far: to get out of the debt spiral and self-reinforcing circle of shrinking demand leading to weaker government finance and shakier banking systems, we need a policy to trigger an expansion in domestic demand in the affected economies. None of the policies suggested by the European leaders do however boost domestic demand. Our research has demonstrated that domestic demand is a function of credit creation. It is currently shrinking in the periphery countries, because credit creation is shrinking. Thus what is required is a new strategy, which can be implemented by the ECB with cooperation of national governments, and which aims squarely at increasing credit creation and generating sustainable growth and employment. The policy centres on an ECB package of measures to solve the bad debt problem in the banking system in exchange for banks’ cooperation in a regime of guided bank credit

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