This book examines the crisis of EMU through the lenses of comparative
political economy. It retraces the development of wage-setting systems
in the core and peripheral EMU member states, and how these
contributed to the increasing divergence between creditor and debtor
states in the late 2000s. Starting with the construction of the
Deutschmark bloc, through the Maastricht process of the 1990s, and
into the first decade of EMU, this book analyzes how labour unions and
wage determination systems adjusted in response to monetary
integration and, in turn, influenced the shape that monetary union
would eventually take. Before the introduction of the Euro, labour
unions were disciplined by central banks and governments, after social
conflict in the north of the continent and with the use of social
pacts in the others. Since controlling inflation had become the main
goal of macro-economic policy, national central banks acted as a
backstop to keep militant unions and profligate governments under
control. Public sector wages thus were subordinated to manufacturing
wages, a set-up policed by export sector unions, aided by the central
bank. With the introduction of the single currency, the European
Central Bank replaced the national central banks and, as a result,
their capacity to control labour unions disappeared. The strong links
between wages in the public sector unions and wages in the
manufacturing export sector weakened dramatically in many countries,
wage inflation re-emerged, and the stage was set for the current
account divergences at the basis of the crisis of EMU.
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Labour Market Institutions and Monetary Integration in Europe
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780191638206
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Vendor
OUP Oxford
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter