By Bruno Ducoudré, Xavier Timbeau and Sébastien Villemot

Current account imbalances are at the heart of the process that led to the crisis in the euro zone starting in 2009. The initial years of the euro, up to the crisis of 2007-2008, were a period that saw widening imbalances between the countries of the so-called North (or the core) and those of the South (or the periphery) of Europe, as can be seen in Figure …

Talk at the EReNSEP conference in Paris

This talk tries to give answers to two important questions in the current context: to what extent is the euro an economic and political cost for France? And is an exit or dismantling of the euro possible, or would it rather be a catastrophe?

Let’s start with the first question. For France, the identifiable costs of belonging to the euro area are essentially three: two of an …

By Sébastien Villemot and Bruno Ducoudré

The euro zone has made significant efforts to reduce its trade imbalances since the outbreak of the financial crisis. In 2009, only Germany, the Netherlands and Austria had a current account surplus, while all the other countries, in particular France, Italy and Spain, ran current account deficits, resulting in a deficit for the zone as a whole (−0.7% of GDP). Five years later, in 2014, the situation had …