MMT, Sovereign Currencies and the Eurozone

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper is an answer to the question: What is new, what is good and what is relevant for Eurozone countries in Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)? The answer is organized under six questions: (1) What is MMT? (2) What is the definition of a sovereign currency — an important concept for MMT authors? (3) Does the institutional setup play any role in assessing monetary sovereignty? (4) Is the euro a foreign currency for eurozone countries, that is, are eurozone countries currency users or currency issuers? (5) Why could there be a eurozone financial crisis and was it a balance-of-payment crisis, as a number of authors have claimed? (6) And as a conclusion, what is the future of the Eurozone? It is argued that MMT is part of the Institutionalist branch of post-Keynesian economics; that the current definition of a sovereign currency is insufficient; that the Eurozone crisis arose from the combination of Maastricht-like rules and the convention that the European Central Bank would not act as a purchaser of last resort; and that this crisis can only be taken to be a balance-of-payment crisis when considering that bond investors thought some countries would leave the Eurozone and face currency depreciation.