McKay om EMU år 1999

1999 publicerades en artikel av statsvetaren David McKay, som (enkelt uttryckt) redogjorde för vad nationalekonomer ansåg krävas för att en gemensam valuta skulle fungera, och kopplade ihop detta med statsvetenskaplig forskning som sade att  det kommer inte att hända, med mindre än att det uppstår en enorm legitimitetskris.

Abstract:

This article synthesizes a large body of work in applied economics on the likely effects of European Monetary Union with an established literature in political science on the political sustainability of intervention by central or federal authorities in the economies of diverse nations, states or regions. Three possible economic scenarios resulting from EMU are identified - fiscal centralization, monetary discipline and loose money. The greatly enhanced central role implied by the first two would be difficult to legitimize in the context of the absence of a European citizen identity or party system. Historical precedent suggests that, in democracies, both central redistribution in social spending and retrenchment of established social programmes are facilitated by jurisdiction-wide political parties. The loose money scenario, while viable in most member states, would be unlikely to be acceptable in Germany. The article concludes, therefore, that all three scenarios most often predicted by the economics literature carry with them a risk that they will be difficult to sustain politically.

Det låter onekligen som en insiktsfull artikel. Kanske ångrar författaren att han lade in en typisk brasklapp på slutet:

But the purpose  of  this  article has  not been  to  demonstrate that EMU  is  politically doomed. It  has been, rather,  to show that  all of the scenarios most often predicted by  economists  hold with  them  serious risks that they will  not be  considered legitimate by  the mass publics  of  the European Union.

En annan möjlighet är dock att McKay om några år är ganska glad att brasklappen lades in. Vilket påminner mig om att våren blir spännande…

Källa: McKay, D. (1999). The Political Sustainability of European Monetary Union. British Journal of Political Science, 29, 463-485.