How Much Would US Style Fiscal Integration Buffer European Unemployment and Income Shocks? (A Comparative Empirical Analysis)

摘要

Several European Union countries remain mired in the deepest recession since the Great Depression, and the state of European economies varies greatly by country. Greek and Spanish unemployment rates were 25.4 percent and 26.2 percent in August of 2012, while Germany and the Netherlands had unemployment rates of 5.4 percent and 5.5 percent. This has led many policymakers (including the French president and the prime minister of Spain) to call for much more serious fiscal integration across EU countries.1