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Euro Area Membership and the Probability of a Sudden Stop: An Empirical Assessment
Author(s) -
De Freitas Miguel Lebre,
Nunes Luis Catela,
Rodrigues Madalena Sampaio
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
jcms: journal of common market studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.54
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1468-5965
pISSN - 0021-9886
DOI - 10.1111/jcms.12641
Subject(s) - debt , sudden stop , government (linguistics) , economics , perception , econometrics , actuarial science , monetary economics , psychology , finance , market economy , liberalization , linguistics , philosophy , neuroscience , capital flows
Using quarterly data from 1995 until 2014, we investigate whether Euro Area (EA) membership influences the probability of a European Union Member State going through an episode of sudden stop or through an episode of bonanza, after controlling for a number of push and pull factors. Overall, our results do not support the claim that EA membership constituted a weakness during the recent financial crisis. On the contrary, we find that EA membership decreases the probability of a sudden stop, all else equal. We find no evidence that being part of the EA has a direct effect on the probability of bonanza. When allowing for interaction effects, our results suggest that EA membership might have mitigated the risk perception arising from higher government debt in the case of bonanzas.