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Maastricht convergence criteria and economic growth: the case of selected EU Member States
yflK 378
Petra Valickova
Ph. D. student, Institute of economic studies, Faculty of social sciences, Charles University in Prague Opletalova 26, Praha 1, 11 000 Czech Republic
Wadim Strielkowski
Lecturer, Institute of economic studies, Faculty of social sciences, Charles University in Prague Opletalova 26, Praha 1, 11 000 Czech Republic
This article examines the effects of Maastricht criteria and the Stability and Growth Pact on economic development of selected European Union (EU) countres. Our research is mainly concerned with the countries belonging to the Eurozone. The evidence stemming from the panel data analysis suggests that the above requirements do not impose macroeconomic constraints on Eurozone coun-
tries. On the contrary, these critera may act as controls for long-run growth prospects. In addition, our analysis suggests that fulfilling the criterion of government deficit and public finances should be of major importance for every EU Member State.
Keywords: transition economies, Maastricht criteria, economic development, panel data
1. Introduction
0 The Maastricht Treaty which was signed in 1991 set g a condition that any EU Member State wishing to join ^ the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) had to fulfil K certain criteria. These criteria were designed in order jE to reach some degree of nominal convergence among ^ the European Union countries, and thus to reduce the « asymmetric shocks the individual countries might have
faced once they lost their independent monetary policy.
^ By accepting these terms and finally by accepting a sin-
uj gle currency as the means of payment, these countries
lq would loose the possibility to use monetary policy and
2 exchange rate to deal with asymmetric shocks, and thus ~ some degree of flexibility at economic policy level (Dunin-
3 Wasowicz, 2004). The only policy tool left in the hands of
1 EU Member States for dealing with adverse shocks was
< their fiscal policy (due to the fact that labour markets h are quite rigid in Europe). However, even the fiscal policy
< of these countries is to a great extent limited by the requirements set in Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) which consists of fiscal monitoring of Eurozone Member States. With regard to that, the Stability and Growth Pack can be viewed as a way to ensure fiscal discipline, guarantee the equilibrium of public finances, avoid high inflation rates and ensure economic growth in the euro area. It strives to achieve zero public deficits in the medium term so that the country has greater budget flexibility when members suffer asymmetric shocks and fall into recession. The rationale for that is that balanced budgets allow for economic adjustments in the short-term. However, if the asymmetric shock is long-lasting, as it is the case of current crisis, balanced budgets need to be supported by low public debts which allow maintaining sustainability of public finances. Thus, although it might be tempting for some governments to run budget deficits which usually immediately translate into higher public debts, this can have devastating effects on the economy. With regard to this, it seems that both the Maastricht criteria and Stability and Growth Pact were aimed to prevent large devastating effects which can arise from large budget deficits translated into public debts.
The convergence criteria which were applied to new EU Member States in order for qualifying them for joining the EMU were dictated by the Treaty. The compliance with these criteria was the ultimate condition for joining the EU. The European Commission in this respect publishes every year how particular states meet the convergence criteria.
"The Maastricht criteria regarding nominal convergence and the Stability Pact requirements made on public deficits have imposed some important constraints which are neither favourable to growth nor to unemployment performance" (Castro and Soukiazis, 2003, p. 2).
However, some researchers claim that these requirements are excessive and impose macroeconomic constraints on Eurozone countries since they do not take into account the specific problems that individual countries may encounter. Additionally, some authors (for example Von Hagen, 2003, or Jonas, 2006) claim that economic growth should receive precedence over a strict application of the fiscal rules. Moreover, they state that economic growth is a condition for improving a country's budgetary positions.
Nevertheless, current crisis in Europe has highlighted the importance of maintaining budget deficits and thus public debts in "reasonable" limits, which is exactly in our opinion the main idea of Maastricht criteria and Stability and Growth Pact. Futhermore, we examined some of the
empirical works that tried to directly measure the effects of the Maastricht criteria on economic growth, and the results seems to be quite sensible to methodology and explanatory variables employed. In this respect it may be interesting to examine how the obligations imposed on EU Member States either by the Euro Convergence Criteria or by Stability and Growth Pact affect real economic variables. In this paper the research focus will be on the founder members of Eurozone. That is, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain are of our interest.
The structure of this paper is the following. In the first section, we describe the Maastricht criteria and the Stability and Growth Pact. In the second section, we highlight the current discussion over these criteria. The third section provides a brief overview of the empirical papers trying to directly measure the effects of these criteria on real economic development. The fourth section stipulates the research question and provides a brief overview of data and methodology used. The fifth section discusses the methodology used. The last section provides results from various panel data estimations. The paper is
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