Posts
Lynn, Matthew. "Bust:
-There's much reading yet to do with Lynn's book but so far he brings up some good topics about current fiscal problems the EU is facing and some implications for the future of the EU/Euro.
Eichengreen, Barry. "Europe's Trojan Horse." http://relooney.fatcow.com/0_New_6768.pdf(accessed Feb 2011)
-this is a very interesting article that directly relates to and addresses some of my questions of the necessity for the European Union countries to unite completely or suffer further losses from the more troublesome countries. It also talks about how the stronger/higher producing EU countries might not like this/agree to it because of the financial burden of having to further carry the risky countries.
Roubin, Nouriel. "Teaching PIIGS to Fly." http://relooney.fatcow.com/0_New_6765.pdf(accessed Feb 2011)
-Roubin's article on the PIIGS counties is very interesting, he basically covers the troubles that lay ahead with the EU with the current debt crisis and what the EU might face if major changes are not applied.
Brown, Brenden. "Euro Crash: The Implications of Monetary Failure in
-Brown's book further explores the path the EU is on with the Euro and increasingly weakening countries. The author also goes into further detail about what would likely happen to the EU should more defaults come as a result of the extensive bailouts possible needed.
McNamara, Kathleen. "The Currency of Ideas: Monetary Politics in the European Union (Cornell Studies in Political Economy)." Cornell University, 1998
-McNamara discusses in details some of the reasons that countries enter into currency unions and some of the major pitfalls of these relationships.
Masson, Paul: Taylor, Mark. "Policy Issues in the Operation of Currency Unions" University Press, Campbridge 1993
-Masson and Taylor discuss the functions of a currency union and get into great details about the inner workings and where they fall short but how political power pushes them on, NOT economic power.
Brash, Donald: Reserve Bank of New Zealand "The Pros and Cons of Currency Union: a Reserve Bank Perspective." http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/speeches/0091114.html (Accessed Feb 2011)
-Great article from the bank of New Zealand discussing the pro and cons of a currency union, reasons they would want to enter into a larger one, which countries would best benefit them in the union but also some of the major draw backs. He specifically discusses the aspect of losing monetary control of an individual country when a currency union is started.
List of Countries with Currency Unions, International Monetary Fund: http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/emu.htm (Accessed Feb 2011)
-According to the International Monetary Fund this is a list of countries that have and are currently in currency unions.
Additional List of Currency Unions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_currency (Accessed Feb 2011)
-Wikipedia's list of currency unions with their GDP numbers and rough populations.
List of external debt: "World Economic Outlook Database, April 2010, International Monetary Fund." (Accessed on Feb 2011)
-According to the IMF this is a list of the external debt on several countries including the EU countries, this debt refers to the money a country owes through the sale of bonds and treasuries to other countries.
Secondary List of External Debt for EU Counties:"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt" (Accessed Feb 2011)
-Just a secondary list of external debt owed by one country to another.
Eichengreen, Barry: "Globalizing Capital: a History of the International Monetary System" Princeton University Press, 2008
-Eichengreen goes through the history of the monetary system and how it's changing and evolving and some of the fundamental aspects that are required for a successful monetary system to function properly.
Eichengreen, Barry. "European monetary unification: a tour d'horizon." http://people.exeter.ac.uk/tkirsano/eichengreen.pdf (Accessed Feb 2011)
-Eichengreen in this report praises the effort of the EU to make the currency union work and function but warns of the pit falls.
Pissarides, Christopher. "London School of Economics, The Labor Market and the Euro" http://www.new.ucy.ac.cy/data/ecorece/Full%20text_Pissarides.pdf (Accessed Feb 2011)
-Pissarides discusses the aspects of a currency union, the expectations but the sometimes overlooked detail of the work force through the various countries involved in the unions.
Sarkar, Salil "Will the Euro Survive?" http://www.english.rfi.fr/economy/20100628-will-euro-survive (Accessed Feb 23, 2011)
-Sarkar discusses the specific aspect of the lack of a central federal body to more tightly unify the countries as well as the heavy burden of debt each country holds.
Sarkar, Salil "Will Austerity Save Europe From Crisis" http://rfi.my/i9mCa2 (Accessed Feb 25 2011)
-Here Sarkar again reinforces the problems the EU is facing and if their attempts of a solution are really making enough of a difference.
4 comments:
Looks like you are well on your way with your topic and you have plenty of sources. These will allow you to look at the issue from several viewpoints. Perhaps now you can really choose which point of view you most agree with and use the others to defend your position. You may even use all the research you have been doing to state that challenges associated with the euro and what you think the future of the euro is.
"The goal of this paper is to research if the European Union can survive, with the current countries,
without becoming a single country. In other words, can the Euro hold the European Union together?"
I apologize, but I am not really sure that I understand the above statements... It seems that this
statement is fragmented. Can the European Union survive will depend on more than the euro -- in
fact, I don't know of an instance in all history where money was the reason for countries to concede
their sovereignty to another (not saying it wasn't taken). Remember that the EU was created to help these smaller countries trade better with each other and the world and be able to compete better with the larger GNP (gross nation profit) countries.
If the EU administers the euro poorly, the effect could fracture the alliance between countries, where no matter how good it is administered there will still be other issues that would come into affect to keep the countries individuals. Each nation does have their own national pride and money (economical force) will not necessarily unite them. Think of England and Ireland and all the issues they have between each other! It will take something to affect the cultures and their cultural connection to decide to become more together than apart. Remember the relevance that peoples cultures have to their way of thinking.
It sound like your statement is still to wide and may need to be focused more... Maybe instead of the full EU you could focus on effect within one or two countries... the effect of the euro on their culture if any... or effect on international business (collective economy) with the country... or how about the effect of the euro has on the idea of one nation (in the present/future) within the specific culture...
Now... like I said to begin with... I will apologize if I totally am off base in my understanding of what you are studying and just disregard this if I am off base!
Jared,
It's nice to see a blog that has a genuine, working, multi-sourced annotated bibliography. Dawn has raised several salient points with regard to your research question, which I feel is still a little wobbly. It's not that your topic is too broad or too narrow per se, it's that your question leaves open a basket of variables, as Dawn helpfully illustrates by itemizing a few. This, however, is a much simpler problem to remedy than the more common problem people are having of not accumulating much in the way of diverse, solid source material, which you appear to have.
You should tinker with rephrasing your thesis question based upon what you're finding out from your sources. One possibility is to ask, "Is a single currency necessary to the survival of the EU?" I think we can all agree that a single currency is never both necessary and _sufficient_ for the survival of a political union, but you might be able to make a strong case that a single currency for all EU partners is necessary for the union to survive.
You know the sources better than I or anyone else in this course. Use what you're learning as a guide to phrasing your question in such a way that it _can_ be fairly definitively answered in the space of a senior thesis. That will be the trick with a topic that attempts prediction for events involving so many, many variables.
Good set of sources! Keep expanding it and annotate in even more detail where it is helpful.
In response to the comments about a focused thesis statement, I'd keep it working in my mind as I continued to read my sources. Lots of reading will move you, at some point, to exactly the right formulation if you pay good attention along the way.
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