Would it make sense to completely loosen the euro zone’s budgetary constraints?
The euro zone has an external surplus and therefore a savings surplus, which might suggest that the euro-zone countries could increase their fiscal deficits. But this external surplus stems solely from Germany and the Netherlands; the other euro-zone countries reduced their domestic demand to eliminate their external deficits when capital mobility between the euro-zone countries disappeared . Germany and the Netherlands are not asking f or a more expansionary fiscal policy. So would a more expansionary fiscal policy in the other euro-zone countries be acceptable? It would be very dangerous: Because of the absence of capital mobility, these countries would not be able to finance the external deficit that would result from the fiscal deficit; Fiscal solvency would no longer be met, leading to the risk of a rise in interest rates; Supply-side problems now outweigh demand-side problems in the euro-zone countries, which was not the case during the euro-zone crisis.