IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/revpoe/v10y1998i1p5-26.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Monetary versus Political Unification in Europe. On Maastricht as an exercise in 'vulgar' political economy

Author

Listed:
  • Massimo Pivetti

Abstract

The original conceptions of the EMU project widely recognized that removal of capital controls and centralization of monetary policy in Europe could but be envisaged at the end of a more advanced process of political integration. The Delors report and the Maastricht Treaty departed markedly from this view, which has been replaced by a concept of monetary integration as a 'catalyst' or 'stepping stone' to political integration. Such a concept is criticized in the present article and the contention is put forward that capital control, by allowing a country to have the appropriate rate of interest, may allow it to achieve such goals as a more equitable distribution of income, high levels of employment and continuous improvements in the standard of living, as well as a low rate of inflation. Only if these goals ceased to represent national concerns and became instead overall European concerns, would it make sense for individual countries not to struggle to preserve their monetary and fiscal autonomy. But undiluted support for a regime of free international capital mobility is not going to be easily disposed of, unless eventual emancipation from current orthodoxy goes so far as to question some of its very foundations.

Suggested Citation

  • Massimo Pivetti, 1998. "Monetary versus Political Unification in Europe. On Maastricht as an exercise in 'vulgar' political economy," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 5-26.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:revpoe:v:10:y:1998:i:1:p:5-26
    DOI: 10.1080/09538259800000045
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09538259800000045
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09538259800000045?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Emerson, Michael & Gros, Daniel & Italianer, Alexander & ,, 1992. "One Market, One Money: An Evaluation of the Potential Benefits and Costs of Forming an Economic and Monetary Union," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198773245.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Massimo Pivetti, 2019. "The euro system and the overall european project: Failure or fully-fledged success?," Revista de Economía Crítica, Asociación de Economía Crítica, vol. 27, pages 112-121.
    2. Summa, Ricardo de Figueiredo, 2022. "Alternative uses of functional finance: Lerner, MMT and the Sraffiansh," IPE Working Papers 175/2021, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).
    3. Massimo Pivetti, 2006. "The 'principle of scarcity', pension policy and growth," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 379-390.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alberto Bagnai & Christian Alexander Mongeau Ospina, 2018. "Monetary integration vs. real disintegration: single currency and productivity divergence in the euro area," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(4), pages 353-367, October.
    2. J. James Reade & Ulrich Volz, 2009. "Too Much to Lose, or More to Gain? Should Sweden Join the Euro?," Economics Series Working Papers 442, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    3. Jean-Paul Fitoussi & Marc Flandreau, 1994. "Le Système monétaire international et l'Union monétaire européenne," Revue de l'OFCE, Programme National Persée, vol. 51(1), pages 167-181.
    4. repec:got:cegedp:112 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Francesco Mongelli, 1999. "The Effects of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) on National Fiscal Sustainability," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 31-61, February.
    6. Carlos J. Rodríguez Fuentes & David Padrón Marrero, 2019. "The ECB monetary strategy: A critical assessment," Revista de Economía Crítica, Asociación de Economía Crítica, vol. 27, pages 16-31.
    7. Francesco Paolo Mongelli, 2008. "European Economic and Monetary Integration, and the Optimum Currency Area Theory," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 302, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    8. Woosik Moon & Yeongseop Rhee, 2012. "Asian Monetary Integration," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14191.
    9. Estrella Gómez & Juliette Milgram Baleix, 2012. "EMU impact of on third countries’ exports. A gravity approach," ThE Papers 10/26, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
    10. Harald Badinger & Kemal Türkcan, 2014. "Currency Unions, Export Margins, and Product Differentiation: An Empirical Assessment for European Monetary Union," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 13-30, February.
    11. Klaus Weyerstrass & Reinhard Neck, 2008. "Macroeconomic effects of Slovenia’s integration in the Euro Area," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 35(4), pages 391-403, September.
    12. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5636 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. John Phelan, 2015. "The Road Not Taken: A Comparison Between the Hard ECU and the Euro," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 397-415, October.
    14. Gundlach, Erich, 1993. "The European single market: bad news for developing countries?," Kiel Working Papers 586, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    15. Silvana Bartoletto & Bruno Chiarini & Elisabetta Marzano, 2013. "Is the Italian Public Debt Really Unsustainable? An Historical Comparison (1861-2010)," CESifo Working Paper Series 4185, CESifo.
    16. Adjalala, Frida & Dissou, Yazid, 2023. "Idiosyncratic shocks in a currency union: Insights from West Africa," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    17. Békés, Gábor, 2012. "Euróbevezetés és a válság - szigorúan ellenőrzött tagságok," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(6), pages 685-689.
    18. Silvana Bartoletto & Bruno Chiarini & Elisabetta Marzano, 2012. "The Sustainability of Fiscal Policy in Italy: A Long-Term Perspective," CESifo Working Paper Series 3812, CESifo.
    19. Ulrich Fritsche & Vladimir Kuzin, 2011. "Analysing convergence in Europe using the non-linear single factor model," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 343-369, October.
    20. Mongelli, Francesco Paolo & Reinhold, Elisa & Papadopoulos, Georgios, 2016. "What's so special about specialization in the euro area?," Occasional Paper Series 168, European Central Bank.
    21. Annamaria Artner & Peter Rona, 2012. "Euros(c)epsis - The theory of the optimum currency area and the history of the Euro," IWE Working Papers 199, Institute for World Economics - Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    22. Benguria, Felipe & Wagner, Rodrigo, 2024. "Trade invoicing currencies and exchange rate pass-through: The introduction of the euro as a natural experiment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:revpoe:v:10:y:1998:i:1:p:5-26. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CRPE20 .

    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.