The EuroAnd its Threat to the Future of Europe
By Joseph E. Stiglitz

From Nobel Prize-winning economist and best-selling author Joseph Sitglitz, author of Globalization and Its Discontents, this is the essential, must-read guide to the future of Europe. Solidarity
and prosperity fostered by economic integration: this principle has
underpinned the European project from the start, and the establishment
of a common currency was supposed to be its most audacious and tangible
achievement. Since 2008, however, the European Union has ricocheted
between stagnation and crisis. The inability of the eurozone to match
the recovery in the USA and UK has exposed its governing structures,
institutions and policies as dysfunctional and called into question the
viability of a common currency shared by such different economies as
Germany and Greece.Designed to bring the European Union closer
together, the euro has actually done the opposite: after nearly a decade
without growth, unity has been replaced with dissent and enlargements
with prospective exits. Joseph Stiglitz argues that Europe's stagnation
and bleak outlook are a direct result of the fundamental flaws inherent
in the euro project - economic integration outpacing political
integration with a structure that promotes divergence rather than
convergence. Money relentlessly leaves the weaker member states and goes
to the strong, with debt accumulating in a few ill-favoured countries.
The question then is: Can the euro be saved?Laying bare the
European Central Bank's misguided inflation-only mandate and explaining
why austerity has condemned Europe to unending stagnation, Stiglitz
outlines the fundamental reforms necessary to the structure of the
eurozone and the policies imposed on the member countries suffering the
most. But the same lack of sufficient political solidarity that led to
the creation of a flawed euro twenty years ago suggests that these
reforms are unlikely to be adopted. Hoping to avoid the huge costs
associated with current policies, Stiglitz proposes two other
alternatives: a well-managed end to the common currency; or a bold, new
system dubbed 'the flexible euro.' This important book, by one of the
world's leading economists, addresses the euro-crisis on a bigger
intellectual scale than any predecessor.