Economic Imbalances and Institutional Changes to the Euro and the European Union

This book offers a criticalperspective from which to observe evolution of the Euro Area and the EuropeanUnion in these times of growing economic and political conflict. Keyimplications of design failures in the Euro Area (i.e. incorrect diagnostics ofthe public finance crisis, single monetary policy failure, heterogeneousmacroeconomic environment, asymmetry in macroeconomic policies, obstacles forpolicy coordination) and their contribution to the excessive external andinternal economic imbalances will be critically discussed from the economic,policy and institutional perspectives. This critical insight is used to examineboth institutional asset and economic performance of Europe after the crisis,moving from the authors’ shared perspective that the crisis revealed the weakaspects of the whole architecture of the European Union.

The economic crisis revealed theexistence of different forms of imbalances inside the Eurozone and highlightedthe flaws of the institutional architecture of economic policy in Europe. Thegreater fragility of some countries in respect to others has triggered abackward process in which national interests have started to prevail over thoseof both the currency area and the entire European Union. In turn, this hasfuelled a progressive decline in confidence in the European institutions and iscreating growing questions of interpretation both in terms of economic theoryand institutional asset. This book focuses on these issues and on the degree oflegitimacy of the European institutions resulting therefrom. It aims toinvestigate the nature and validity of the European integration processemphasizing limits and challenges arising from it.

Rajmund Mirdala is Associate Professor and Head of Department ofeconomics at Faculty of Economics, Technical University of Kosice, Slovakrepublic. He is author of five books (Fiscal Policy in the European ConvergingEconomies, Exchange Rates in the Central European Countries, Economic Aspectsof Capital Flows Liberalization in the European Transition Economies(co-author), Monetary Rules and Their Importance in the Context of MonetaryUnion and Economic Crisis (co-author), The Euro Area and the Economic Crisis(co-author)). He has published 30+ articles in foreign scientific journals, 10+articles in domestic scientific and professional journals, 40+ articles indomestic and foreign conferences. He is principal investigator in 3 projectsfrom national grant schemes, deputy principal investigator in 3 projects fromnational grant schemes and researcher in 8 domestic and foreign projects. He isa member of 17 editorial boards of foreign scientific journals and reviewer for26 domestic and foreign scientific journals (8 listed in WoS - CurrentContents). His research covers following areas: Macroeconomic and MicroeconomicTheory, Monetary Policy, Monetary Integration, International FinancialIntegration, Exchange Rates, Fiscal Policy, International Capital Flows,Transition Economies, Global Imbalances.

Rosaria Rita CanalePh.d (Naples “Federico II” Univ.) is Associate Professor of Economic Policy atthe University of Naples “Parthenope” Her research interest include fiscal andmonetary policy, International economics and history of economic thought. Shewrote many articles on national and international refereed journals the greatpart of which indexed on WoS and Scopus. She collaborates with national andinternational journals as referee. Some of her recent publications are: StructuralPublic Balance Adjustment and Relative Poverty in the Eurozone Countries: AnEmpirical Investigation with Liotti G. in “Ekonomicky casopis” vol. 64, no. 8, 2016; Trust in Institutions and Income Inequalityin the Eurozone: The Role of the Crisis with M. Bonasia, Liotti G. andSpagnolo N. in“Engineering Economics” vol. 27, no. 1, 2016; Capital Flows, Long Term Bond Yields and Fiscal Stance: The Eurozone PolicyTrilemma, in “Portuguese Economic Journal”, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 31-34, 2015;On the Objective of a Sound Publicfinance in the Eurozone, with Bonasia M. in “Rivista Internazionale diScienze Sociali”, no. 2, 2016; StructuralAdjustment and Enemployment in Eurozone with Liotti G. in “AustralianEconomic review”, vol. 48, no. 2, 2015; NationalDisparities and Cyclical Dynamics in Italy (1872-2007). Was Mezzogiorno aSheltered Economy?, with O. Napolitano in “International Review of AppliedEconomics”, vol. 23, no. 3, 2015, CurrentAccount and Fiscal Imbalances in the Eurozone: Siamese Twins in an AsymmetricalCurrency Union with Marani U. in “International Economics And EconomicPolicy”, vol. 12, no. 2, 2014; Structural Public Balance Adjustment Effectson Growth in 25 OECD Countries and Eurozone with Liotti G. and NapolitanoO. in “Comparative Economic Studies”, vol. 56, no. 4, 2014; Alternative Strategies for Monetary Policy,in “Review of Political Economy”, no. 3, 2011.