Europe

The purpose of this Chartbook is to present a summary of evidence about changes in economic inequality – primarily income, earnings, and wealth – for 25 countries covering a 100 year period from 1911 to 2010.

A country that produces goods of high quality at a competitive price is likely to be rewarded for its ingenuity with a trade surplus. Small countries often achieve great development success through export-led growth. At the same time, the entire economic system must be balanced.

What has been learned now that the Euro zone’s fault lines have been revealed? Where are Europe and the Euro zone today?

In a classic book and subsequent articles, Obstfeld and Taylor (2004) have shown how the broad contours of international financial history over the past century and a half can be well understood by appealing to the famous economictrilemma which emerges from the standard Mundell-Fleming model many of us still teach our undergraduates.

The euro area’s sovereign debt crisis continues though significant steps have been taken to resolve it.

In preparing this paper I have decided not to embark upon the decades-old issue of optimal-currency areas and governance as such. I assume that one of my colleagues on the panel will do that. Instead I will present an historical case of over-indebtedness of parts of a common-currency area somewhat similar to the present challenge of Europe, or rather of the Euro area with its common currency.