Opinion piece

Lessons for the euro from early US monetary and financial history

In this essay, Jeffry Frieden looks at the process of creating a monetary union in the United States and draws lessons for the EU.

Publishing date
25 May 2016
Authors
Jeffry Frieden

Europe’s central goal for several decades has been to create an economic union that can provide monetary and financial stability. This goal is often compared to the long-standing monetary union that is the United States. Easy celebration of the successful American union ignores the fact that it took an extremely long time to accomplish. In fact, the creation and completion of the US monetary and financial union was a long, laborious, and politically conflictual process.

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