Lessons from the Eurocrisis for East Asian Monetary Relations

Abstract

I analyse the sources of the Eurozone crisis. The major conclusion is that the Eurozone is insufficiently embedded in a monetary union, thereby making it fragile and prone to crises. The lesson I draw for East Asia is that despite the fact that this region appears to satisfy the traditional optimal currency area (OCA) criteria to form a monetary union, the complete absence of political unification makes the prospect of a monetary union in that region of the world both unrealistic and undesirable.