Two weeks ago on November 21st and 22nd I attended a conference in Athens organized by the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College and some other institutions. Under the general title “Europe at the Crossroads: A Union of Austerity or Growth Convergence?” …
In a recent blog posting Paul Krugman tried to answer the question whether there had been excessive German unit labour cost growth before EMU and whether a potentially necessary correction for that took place since 1999. I did not fully understand his answer but the question brings back an old argument used frequently by the ECB and the EU commission before the crisis to justify the gap that had emerged between Germany and the rest of EMU in the first years of EMU. …
