Interest rates, Eurobonds and intra-European exchange rate misalignments: The challenge of sustainable adjustments in the eurozone

Résumé En

The euro crisis sheds light on the nature of alternative adjustment mechanisms in a heterogeneous monetary union. Exchange rate adjustments being impossible, it remains very few efficient alternative mechanisms. At the level of the whole eurozone the euro is close to its equilibrium parity. But the euro remains overvalued for Southern European countries, France included, and largely undervalued for Northern European countries, especially for Germany. This paper gives a new evaluation of these exchange rate misalignments inside the eurozone thanks to a FEER approach. In a second step, we use a two-country SFC model of a monetary union with endogenous interest rates and Eurobonds. Overvaluations amount to negative competitiveness shocks in Southern countries. In this respect, three main results are found. Firstly, an increase of intra-European financing by banks of northern countries or other institutions could contribute to reduce the debt burden and induce a partial recovery but public debt would increase. Secondly, the implementation of Eurobonds as a tool to partially mutualize European sovereign debt would have a rather similar positive impact with a public debt limited to 70 percent of GDP. Thirdly, Eurobonds could also be used to finance large European projects which could impulse a stronger recovery in the entire zone with stabilized current account balances.