The Tragedy of the Euro

The Tragedy of the Euro: How Political Interests Created a Self-Destroying System is Philipp Bagus's newest book, exploring the European Central Bank and the economic crisis in the European Union. The book is forthcoming from the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

In a Faculty Spotlight Interview with the Mises Blog, Bagus explained the purpose of this work:

We have heard much about the Fed but no one talks about the ECB. In my new book The Tragedy of the Euro, I answer this question and analyze the workings of the European monetary system and compare it to the Fed's. A decisive distinction is that in the European monetary system several independent governments may use the printing press, i.e., the ECB, in order to finance their deficits. This setup contains explosive incentives. … The main message is that in its current form the system is self-destructive, it is a tragedy of the commons.