Two post on developing currency wars.

Now Mr Weidmann would like to see austerity policies in all deficit countries as the preferred tool of adjustment. However, this adjustment has caused mass unemployment in the European deficit countries and falling GDP with no light at the end of the tunnel so far. This, I believe, is the background of the conflict in the ECB. Some, like Mr Weidmann, are calling for internal devaluation policies, while others, like Mr Constâncio, are more open to other ways of economic adjustment.

By the way: there is a clear distributional effect of this choice. Adjustment by austerity leaves capital owners in surplus countries unharmed (at least it seems so to people who do not understand theparadox of thrift) while it hurts workers in the deficit countries. Adjustment by exchange rate changes leaves nominal wages untouched, but some capital owners in the surplus country lose because their investments in the deficit country are now worth less in domestic currency. However, while there is proof that the second avenue works the first – austerity – is without theory. There is no theory of expansionary austerity – it is all wishful thinking.