The Challenge of Enlargement of Euroland Paul De Grauwe University of Leuven

The launch of the euro has been an extraordinarily successful operation Yet there are challenges ahead The main challenge comes from the enlargement

Several issues 1. Is a Eurozone of 25 countries an OCA? 2. How will enlargement affect costs and benefits of EMU for the present members? 3. Can an enlarged Eurozone continue to function as it does today? 4. Monetary policy in EMU and asymmetries

1.Is a Eurozone of 25 countries an OCA?

The traditional theory Definition of OCA According to traditional theory of OCAs, the optimality of currency areas depends on three variables Openness (integration) Asymmetry of shocks Flexibility

Costs and benefits monetary union: asymmetry and flexibility In OCA-zone: benefits of EMU exceed costs Asymmetry of shocks is compensated by flexibility Outside OCA-zone Reverse holds OCA I asymmetry flexibility OCA-zone

Nature of OCA-zone: benefits of EMU exceed costs countries find the cost of not being able to use their national monetary policies to deal with asymmetric shocks small compared to the benefits of the union. Union central bank is not perceived to neglect national monetary conditions when setting unique interest rate. Monetary policy that fits one size is not perceived to be costly.

Costs and benefits monetary union: asymmetry and openness In OCA-zone: benefits of EMU exceed costs Asymmetry of shocks is compensated by openness (integration) Outside OCA-zone Reverse holds OCA II asymmetry Openness (integration) OCA-zone

Evidence: Openness

Evidence: Asymmetry of shocks

Central European countries are relatively open to rest of EU More so than the UK Central European countries subject to more asymmetric shocks This is also the case for UK Missing links: Flexibility: we know very little about this

Is EU-25 an OCA? asymmetry and openness EU-25 is likely to be outside OCA-zone There is a large component of uncertainty Endogenous nature of dynamics towards OCA: OCA-criteria could be selffulfilling EU-25 OCA II asymmetry opennes OCA-zone

Complicating factor: Many countries see monetary union as instrument to import monetary stability Cfr. Southern European countries prior to EMU Central European countries today As a result traditional OCA-analysis plays little role in decision to join Once monetary stability is achieved traditional OCA-analysis will reappear with a vengeance

Mundell I and II: some thoughts on Ron McKinnon’s comments Mundell II has two components Integration of financial markets allows to smooth consumption in the face of output shocks Monetary union is a big boost to financial market integration

Underlying belief of Mundell II: capital markets are efficient E.g. stock prices reflect underlying fundamental developments Thus financial flows within the union will be stabilizing

Suppose however that financial markets are not efficient Local booms and busts Sylicon Valley Lernout-Hauspie China

Monetary union can exacerbate these local booms and busts Large regional adjustment problems We are back at square one Mundell I had same problem

Mundell I: Asymmetric shocks Floating rates can deal with this If foreign exchange markets are efficient In that case exchange rate will closely reflect fundamentals Exchange rates are stabilizing

Mundell II rejects this view: exchange markets are not efficient But Mundell II has same problem as Mundell I Paradox: if your belief in efficient markets you can either be against or in favour of MU

Against because you believe that exchange markets are efficient (Mundell I) In favour because you believe that capital markets are efficient (Mundell II)

2. Implications of enlargement for present eurozone

Implications of enlargement for present eurozone EU-25 less integrated and more subject to asymmetric shocks than EU-12 original members of Euroland (who are also part of EU-25) have to wait longer to reach OCA-zone Some original members will perceive policies of the ECB to be less receptive to shocks than before the enlargement EU-12 EU-25 OCA divergence openness (integration)

perceived costs of the union will increase relative to the perceived benefits of the single currency. tensions inside the Eurosystem increase when some countries feel that their economic interests are not served well by the ECB.

ECB can do very little about this Nevertheless it is likely to get part of the blame Greater acceptance that the ECB cannot deal with national problems

Intermezzo: Should UK join EMU? Openness: UK relatively little openness Asymmetric shocks are relatively large Flexibility

UK is relatively closed towards EU UK experiences relatively large asymmetric shocks BUT, UK has more labour market flexibility allowing it to better adjust to these shocks Benefits may be higher than costs Cost-benefit calculus for member countries may deteriorate

What is the right euro/pound rate at entry? Pound seems to be overvalued, although this is still uncertain If overvalued, there will be a problem that will have to be solved collectively

3. Enlargement and institutional reform

present system: equal representation of each member country in the Governing Council such a system works satisfactorily today. will it work well when Eurozone has 25 countries?

Present situation: a lot of asymmetric shocks

Asymmetric developments of inflation and output growth create different desires about the interest rate that should apply for Eurozone We can measure these desires by the Taylor rule

Taylor rule r t = a + b  t + cx t r t = nominal interest rate  t = inflation x t = output gap

Present situation: asymmetric distibution of desired interest rates using Taylor Rule (2002) Assumptions: Governors are nationalistic ECB-board cares about Euro-wide interests Conclusion ECB-Board has strategic position despite asymmetries in shocks

Conclusion of previous analysis Today the ECB-Board has strategic position within Governing Council. (Its interest rate proposal is close to median) This is maintained even when distribution of desired interest rates is very different among large and small countries. This decision making process ensures that the interest rate that is decided is the optimal one from the point of view of the Eurozone as a whole.

This is so even if national governors are guided by economic conditions prevailing in their own countries. This decision making model also ensures that large countries’ (France, Germany, Italy) interests are relatively well served, despite the overrepresentation of the small countries in the Governing Council. Consensus is easy to reach and formal voting usually unnecessary

After enlargement: asymmetric distibution of desired interest rates

In enlarged Eurozone the ECB-Board will loose its strategic position. Its interest rate proposals will occasionally be overruled by coalitions of small countries who experience different economic conditions than the average (which is dominated by the large countries). Interest rate decisions will be made on the basis of economic conditions that prevail in a relatively small part of Euroland.

This will lead to grave conflicts within the Eurosystem. Consensus model is likely to break down. The essence of the problem: small countries are over-represented in the Governing Council in enlarged Eurosystem this will have fatal effect that interest rate decisions may not always be made on the basis of the average economic conditions that prevail in the union.

How to solve this problem? The importance of small countries in the Governing Council must be reduced so that the strategic position of the Board can be maintained. Several possible formulas

Possible formulas US Fed formula: all governors participate in deliberations of Governing Council but voting rights are restricted to a limited number of governors (e.g. ten) on a rotating basis. The IMF formula: small countries group together in constituencies and are represented by one governor. The centralisation formula: the decision making is centralised in the Executive Board of the ECB. In this formula there is scope for expanding the size of the Board. ECB-proposal is mix of formula 1 and 2

Conclusion It is unlikely that a Eurozone of 25 members is an OCA today It may become one in the future Many countries want to join so as to achieve monetary stability. This may not be a good motivation. Enlargement is likely to make the Eurozone less attractive for present members Enlargement will require important institutional changes within the Eurozone.

4. Monetary policy in EMU in the presence of asymmetries

Purpose of this section : analyse problems of monetary policy making in an environment like Euroland. existence of nation-states with their own idiosyncrasies policy-makers who take decisions jointly but also keep the interests of their countries in the back of their minds. In this section we analyse the problem of monetary policies in an asymmetric environment assuming a two-country model.

The model Countries are the individual agents whose welfare is maximised Loss function of the Eurosystem The loss function of each individual country is written as U R and U F are the unemployment rates in R and F, and U * R and U * F are the natural rates of unemployment in both countries.

Thus, national authorities abstain from pursuing a target unemployment rate below the natural level. This ensures that there will be no inflation bias. Phillips curves Asymmetries appear in two forms: asymmetry in the disturbances, asymmetry in the transmission process (slopes of the Phillips curves).

Decision process in EMU is assumed to be organised as follows. Each central bank computes its loss given the shock it observes in its domestic Phillips curve. This loss is then aggregated by giving the suitable weights (as represented in equation(1)). The union central bank then computes the first order condition of this aggregated loss function, which then determines the optimal inflation that will be applied to the whole of Euroland Rational agents take this decision process into account

optimal inflation rate set by the Eurosystem is a weighted average of the shocks that occur in each country and a weighted average of the transmission coefficients.

countries are identical in transmission structure, but experience different shocks, i.e. a R = a F and  R   F Two cases countries have different transmission mechanism (a R < a F ) but experience symmetric shocks, a R  a F and  R =  F

The model under asymmetric shocks Assumption: countries have equal weight

how much stabilisation of unemployment will there be when asymmetric shocks occur? Compute variances var  = 0.5 [1+  ] var  var U R = var U F = var  When the correlation coefficient,  = -1 (i.e. there is perfect asymmetry in the shocks), var  = 0. This means that the Eurosystem does not adjust the optimal inflation rate to the shocks that occur in the two countries. There is no stabilisation at all. var U R = var U F = var .

The other extreme is one of perfect symmetry of shocks, i.e.  = 1 var  =var  More generally, we find that the degree of stabilisation exerted by the Eurosystem is a positive function of the correlation of the shocks. With an increasing  the Eurosystem increases its stabilisation effort, for any given b. Thus, when the governors of the Eurosystem do not change their preferences (as given by b) an increase in  induces them to stabilise more. Conversely, even if the governors’ preferences do not change, a decline in  leads them to reduce their stabilisation efforts. Implications for enlargement:  is likely to decline, leading to a reduction of stabilisation effort or ECB

Too little stabilisation in euroland?

Monetary policy with asymmetric transmission with an increasing var a (i.e. an increasing asymmetry in the transmission process) the monetary authorities react less to shocks Implications of enlargement: var a is likely to increase

var U F < var U R Since in the flexible country unemployment reacts stronger to prices, the stabilising effect of the ECB-policies is stronger than in the rigid country.

Conclusion As the degree of asymmetries increases, the effectiveness of stabilisation of output and unemployment is reduced. As a result, when asymmetries increase, the stabilisation effort of the central bank declines for given preferences about stabilisation. Thus, if the asymmetries (either in shocks or in transmission) are high the central bank will be perceived as conservative, even though it is not, in terms of its declared preferences. In an enlarged eurozone asymmetries are likely to be more important than in present eurozone. The ECB will be perceived even more thant today as too little responsive to stabilisation of output