When members of a monetary union are experiencing different macroeconomic conditions, a single policy rate is unlikely to fit circumstances in all countries. Currently, the ECB’s target rate seems to be in line with a Taylor rule recommendation for the euro area as a whole. However, economic differences between peripheral and core euro-area countries are sharp. The core countries are recovering, while the peripheral countries still have large unemployment gaps. Thus, the ECB target rate is not in line with Taylor rule recommendations for the peripheral countries.
For the euro area as a whole, the Taylor rule fit has been quite good since 2005, as it has been for the United States. This is not to say that the Taylor rule necessarily indicates optimal policy. Rather, it can be viewed as a “rule of thumb” that has matched ECB policy well over some periods. But the wide gaps in the Taylor rule’s current recommendations for the euro area’s core and periphery show that one size cannot fit all when economic conditions in two regions of a monetary union are so markedly different.
The euro area’s problem of a “one-size-fits-all” monetary policy is not unique. In the United States, economic conditions have frequently differed dramatically across regions. The Federal Reserve does not set different monetary policies for different parts of the country. Nevertheless, the tensions over monetary policy in a union of many separate countries are likely to be greater than tensions in a single country. The United States can rely on its relatively high labor mobility and on fiscal policy to counter economic weakness, for example, options that may not be fully available to the euro area’s heavily indebted peripheral countries.
Fernanda Nechio is an economist in the Economic Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.