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Economic Insecurity and Support for the Euro
SARA BINZER HOBOLT
Department of Politics and International Relations
University of Oxford
sara.hobolt@politics.ox.ac.uk
+44 1865 278830
PATRICK LEBLOND
Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
University of Ottawa
pleblond@uottawa.ca
+1 613 562 5800 (ext. 2953)
**Draft paper. Comments most welcome**
August 26, 2009
Abstract
In light of the recent economic crisis, this paper examines how economic
conditions shape public attitudes toward the European Union’s single
currency, the euro. We argue that attitudes towards the euro are shaped by
both utilitarian and symbolic concerns, but that economic insecurity is a key
factor explaining support for the euro both inside and outside the eurozone.
The effect of economic insecurity on aggregate euro support is mediated by
eurozone membership status as well as economic structure, notably whether
the economy is more dependent on manufacturing or services. Our time‐
series cross‐section analysis of euro support from 1999‐2008 in 28 countries
corroborates these propositions.
1. Introduction
Following its special report on the euro area, which celebrated its tenth anniversary
on January 1, 2009, The Economist concluded that “the euro has proved a haven in the
economic crisis—so much so that no country seriously wants to leave it and plenty
want to join” (Leaders, June 13, 2009, p. 15). In Iceland, following the country’s
banking meltdown in October 2008, a majority of people supported euro
membership. According to a Capacent Gallup poll conducted in January 2009, 56% of
respondents indicated that they preferred to adopt an international currency rather
than keep using the Icelandic crown, which only 22% supported. From this anecdotal
evidence, we might be inclined to think that the recent economic and financial crisis
has been beneficial in consolidating the euro’s legitimacy and popular support in
Europe. 1
Unfortunately for euro enthusiasts, the popular view of the euro as a safe
haven in times of crisis does not hold across Europe. In a recent Eurobarometer
survey (European Commission 2009, EB 71.1), only 39% of EU‐27 respondents
expressed the view that the euro had mitigated the negative effects of the economic
crisis, whereas 44% thought that this was not the case. When asked if their country
would have been better protected in the face of the current financial and economic
crisis if their country had kept its (former) national currency, almost half of
respondents agreed. Outside the eurozone, 36% agreed that adopting the euro would
have offered better protection against the crisis, whereas 46% disagreed. Even in the
United Kingdom, which has been hit hard by the recent financial crisis, support for
adopting the euro has not budged. According to a YouGov opinion poll in January
2009, euro support stood at 24%, which is two percentage points below where it was
in early 2005 (according to a MORI/Citigroup survey) when the UK’s economy was
performing well.
Clearly, economic insecurity as a result of the economic and financial crisis is
not necessarily associated with a more favorable view of the euro, whether one is
inside or outside the eurozone. As with the UK case, other factors seem to influence
1 Another debate surrounding the euro and the economic and financial crisis deals with whether the
euro will replace the US dollar as the world’s main reserve currency (for instance, see Chinn and
Frankel 2008, Cohen 2008, Papaioannou and Portes 2008, and Posen 2008).
1
people’s opinion vis‐à‐vis the euro. But what are they? How does economic
insecurity shape support for the single currency both inside and outside the
eurozone? These are the questions that the current paper seeks to answer. Although
several studies have examined the determinants of euro support, none has yet relied
on a dataset as extensive as the one used herein, which includes recent accession
countries from Central and Eastern Europe as well as the Mediterranean and tracks
support over time. 2 By analyzing support across a wider range of countries, we show
that important differences exist between eurozone insiders and outsiders as well as
within each category, depending on whether a country’s economy is more
dependent on manufacturing or services. Furthermore, the paper extends the
existing literature by focusing directly on the impact of economic insecurity on
popular support for the euro. If policy‐makers want to sell the euro as a safe haven or
a solution to EU member states’ economic problems, they need to understand the
factors that influence Europeans’ opinion about the euro.
explains support for the euro. In section 3, it develops a series of testable hypotheses
regarding factors that affect popular support for the euro. For their parts, section 4
describes the data used in the analysis while section 5 presents the methods adopted
for conducting the econometric analysis and its results. Section 6 discusses the
implications of these results for the relationship between economic insecurity and the
legitimacy of the euro, especially in light of the recent economic and financial crisis.
In the final section, the paper concludes on the contributions of the paper to the
literature on the determinants of public support for the euro as well as presents
recommendations to policy‐makers who want to increase the euro’s legitimacy with
Europeans.
2 Allam and Georres (2008) and Banducci et al. (2009) are notable exceptions in that they also focus or
extend their analysis of popular attitudes toward the euro to Central and Eastern European countries;
however, they do so only with individual‐level cross‐section data (based on a single Eurobarometer
survey in each case).
2
2. Explaining Public Support for the Euro
In the extant literature, two alternative perspectives have been applied to explain
variation in both individual‐level and aggregate‐level support for the EUʹs single
perspective, generic support for European integration is determined by a rational
(particularly trade liberalization) are supportive, whereas those who stand to lose are
more hostile (Gabel 1998a, 1998b; Gabel and Palmer 1995; McLaren 2006). Given the
direct economic implications of monetary integration, it is therefore not surprising
that most scholars have analyzed support for the euro from the standpoint of
economic self‐interest. Monetary integration should lead to increased trade (see Rose
and Stanley 2005) and, as a consequence, individuals with high involvement in
international trade should favor the euro more than individuals employed in the
non‐tradable sector (Gabel 2001; Gabel and Hix 2005; Banducci et al. 2009). Studies of
support for the euro have also found that sociotropic economic concerns play a role
(Banducci et al., 2003, 2009; Kaltenthaler and Anderson 2001). In countries where the
euro is expected to bring about greater economic stability, people are more in favor
of joining the currency union. For instance, Gärtner (1997) found that, prior to the
creation of the euro, citizens in EU member states with a looser fiscal policy and high
deficits were more likely to support the euro (see also Gabel 2001).
An alternative explanation for the variation in support for the euro, and
European integration more generally, focuses less on economic self‐interest and more
on the threat that European integration can pose to national identity and a country’s
2002). Several studies have shown that attachment to the nation, and particularly
“exclusive” national identity, is a powerful predictor of negative attitudes towards
European integration (McLaren 2006; Hooghe and Marks 2004). In the context of the
euro, an important symbol of national identity is the national currency (Cohen 1998;
Hobolt and Leblond 2009). Helleiner (2003) argues that the creation of national
money has traditionally been closely associated with nation‐state building, as a
means of giving the inhabitants of a political entity a sense of collective identity. It is
3
therefore not surprising that feelings of national identity and diffuse support for
(Gabel and Hix 2005; Kaltenthaler and Anderson 2001). In the context of the
referendums on joining the euro in Denmark and Sweden, Jupille and Leblang (2007)
have found that “identity concerns” played a greater role than “pocketbook
calculations” in both referendums. Generally, citizens who thought that the EU
undermined national sovereignty and democracy were more likely to vote against
the euro’s adoption. Similarly, Hobolt and Leblond (2009), arguing that the strength
of a currency is positively related to its symbolic value, have found that exchange
rates influenced support for the euro in both Sweden and Denmark prior to the
referendums. In Denmark, where the krone has been fixed to the Deutschemark
(before 1999) and the euro (since 1999) for years, the weakening (i.e. depreciation) of
the euro vis‐à‐vis the US dollar led to a decline in Danes’ support for the European
single currency. In Sweden, where there has been a flexible exchange rate for years,
the strengthening (i.e. appreciation) of the krona against the euro saw opposition to
eurozone membership increase.
and symbolic concerns play an important role in explaining variation in support for
the euro between countries and across individuals within nations. Yet, the question
still remains about how the recent changes in economic conditions influence support
for monetary integration, and particularly how the current economic climate may
have different effects on public opinion for the monetary integration inside and
outside the currency union. To understand how the economic crisis has affected, and
will continue to influence, support for the euro, we need to examine how changing
economic conditions affect attitudes towards the euro. The existing work on the euro
has provided limited insights into the dynamics of public support for the euro, as
most studies have focused on cross‐sectional variation (across countries or
individuals) in support rather than over time change. In addition to the study by
Hobolt and Leblond (2009), which considers monthly changes in euro support, a
notable exception is the work conducted by Banducci, Karp and Loedel, who
examine public support for the euro before (Banducci et al. 2003) and after (Banducci
4
et al. 2009) the introduction of euro. Using pooled Eurobarometer survey data from
the currency is associated with higher levels of support for the euro.
These studies make an important contribution to our understanding of
support for European monetary integration as they show that changes in economic
conditions lead to changes in support for the euro. Yet, they also raise additional
questions: to what extent do such relationships depend on whether or not a country
belongs to the eurozone? And what about differences in countries’ economic
structure? How do they affect the relationship between economic conditions and
support for the euro? The next section presents a theoretical explanation of support
for monetary integration that seeks to provide answers to these questions, and the
subsequent sections of this paper test these explanations in a time‐series‐cross
sectional analysis of euro support in 28 countries since the birth of the eurozone in
1999.
3. Economic Insecurity and Euro Support
Economic crises create a heightened sense of insecurity among individuals. People
fear that they will become unemployed, which then makes it more difficult for them
to pay back loans and mortgages. At the same time, they fear that the value of their
assets (houses, investments, pensions, etc.) will decline, which also makes it more
difficult for them to face up to their liabilities. Moreover, if part or all of their
liabilities is denominated in foreign currency and the relative value of the national
currency tumbles, then debts become even more expensive to pay back (assuming
that assets are denominated mostly in national currency). Naturally, following the
utilitarian perspective outlined above, citizensʹ evaluations of the euro should be
influenced by whether they feel that monetary integration exacerbates (or would
exacerbate) this economic insecurity or whether it protects (or would protect) them
from the consequences of crisis. The extent to which citizens feel that European
monetary union (EMU) has or would have offered protection from the economic
crisis varies considerably across countries. For instance, among individuals in
eurozone member states, the percentage of respondents who think that they would
5
have been better protected from the recent economic and financial crisis if their
country had not adopted the euro varies between 16 percent in Slovakia to 62 percent
in Portugal (see Figure 1a). Outside the eurozone, we find similar differences. For
instance, only 17 percent of surveyed Bulgarians think that the euro would have
offered better protection against the crisis than their national currency, compared to
61 percent of Hungarian respondents (see Figures 1b). These wide variations in
responses beg the question as to how economic factors shape citizens’ feelings of
whether the euro protects against insecurity or, in fact, exacerbates economic
insecurity, not only in times of crisis, but also in general.
[INSERT FIGURES 1a AND 1b ABOUT HERE]
To begin with, it is important to note that the effect of economic conditions on euro
support should depend on whether or not a country is already a member of the
eurozone. We expect that citizens outside the eurozone are more in favour of joining
the eurozone when they are experiencing worsening economic conditions than when
such conditions are improving. When they perceive economic conditions to be
deteriorating, they are more likely to think that belonging to the eurozone will
generate more economic stability and prosperity. In contrast, citizens in countries
inside the eurozone are expected to view the single currency more favourably when
economic conditions are good than when they are bad, since they are likely to
attribute the economic climate, at least in part, to the monetary policy of the
European Central Bank (ECB) and the fiscal requirements of the Stability and
Growth Pact. 3 Hence, when consumer confidence is low, we expect higher levels of
support in ʹoutsiderʹ countries, but lower levels of support inside the eurozone.
Equally, we would expect that objective indicators of economic conditions, such as
unemployment, inflation and economic growth, will influence support in opposite
directions outside and inside the eurozone. For instance, higher unemployment or
inflation should be associated with greater support for the euro outside EMU but
3 It should be noted that the constraints imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact are rather weak (see
Heipertz and Verdun 2004; Leblond 2006).
6
lower support inside the eurozone, while the opposite should hold for economic
growth. Since interest rates are directly linked to the management of the monetary
union, we expect them to have a greater effect on support inside the union, where
lower interest rates should be associated with higher levels of support. This leads us
to formulate the following hypotheses:
H1: Public support for the euro in non‐eurozone countries increases as economic
conditions worsen.
H2: Public support for the euro in eurozone countries decreases as economic
conditions worsen.
H3: Lower interest rates increase support for the euro in eurozone countries.
Another important factor that should condition the effect of economic conditions on
euro support is a countryʹs economic structure. If monetary integration is considered
good for trade, then individuals’ opinion about adopting the euro will depend on
their labor market association: in the tradable or the non‐tradable sector (see Gabel
2001; Hix and Gabel 2005). But such a demarcation is insufficient; the international
competitiveness of an economy’s tradable goods and services also matters. For
example, people who work in an industry that is finding it difficult to compete
internationally and where, as a result, jobs are threatened are less likely to support
factors that contribute to this loss of competitiveness, e.g. free trade, inflation or an
appreciated (strong) currency. Ideally, international competitiveness increases along
with productivity, whereby the same amount of inputs (labor and capital) are able to
produce more output. This usually happens as a result of innovation. But
(appreciates) relative to others as exportable goods and services become cheaper
(more expensive) in foreign currency terms. This depends, however, on whether
imports are used as inputs into the production of exports, since a depreciated
(appreciated) currency makes imports more (less) expensive. This is why Frieden
7
(1991) argues that producers of non‐tradable goods and services should prefer a
competing producers of tradables for the domestic market should favor a weak
currency. A depreciated (appreciated) currency also hurts (benefits) consumers who
buy foreign goods and services, who as a result of changes in the exchange rate see
their purchasing power decline (improve).
The progressive appreciation of the euro against the US dollar between 2002
and mid‐2008 (see Figure 2) has been a problem for those European firms (1) that are
located within the eurozone or in a country that has its national currency pegged to
and other East Asian countries that peg their currencies to the dollar (Palley 2007). 4
This means that individuals who work for such European firms are unlikely to be
favourable to a strong euro relative to the US dollar. In return, they should not be
very supportive of the euro itself when it is strong and leads their employer to
become less competitive against foreign producers in Europe and the United States,
which are the two markets where the majority of both European and East Asian
goods are sold (i.e. exported) to. The larger the number of households (workers and
their families) facing economic uncertainty because of a strong euro that one finds in
a given country, the lower the aggregate support for the euro in that same country is
likely to be.
The appreciation of the euro should be especially problematic for Central and
Eastern European and Mediterranean (CEEM) countries, whose economies rely to a
large extent on manufacturing (often of low value‐added products like textiles,
apparel, shoes, etc.) than on services, since their products compete directly with
those coming from countries such as China (see Pisani‐Ferry and Sapir 2008). The
appreciation of the euro can also indirectly affect CEEM countries negatively if it
means that a not insignificant portion of their exports serve as inputs into the exports
to the US of countries such as Germany and France. In such a case, the demand for
4 If the Chinese yuan (or renminbi) and other currencies from emerging East Asian countries are pegged
to the US dollar and the latter depreciates against the euro, then the euro also appreciates against the
East Asian currencies (see Figure 2 for the case of the Chinese yuan).
8
inputs from CEEM countries would slow down as German or French goods become
more expensive internationally as the euro appreciates against the dollar.
Following from the above discussion of the euro’s strength against the US
dollar, we can formulate the following hypothesis:
H4: Public support for the euro in countries where the economy is dominated by the
manufacturing industry declines as the euro appreciates.
[INSERT FIGURE 2 ABOUT HERE]
entirely on utilitarian calculations of the effect of monetary integration on economic
insecurity. But, as discussed above, support for monetary integration is also affected
by a different kind of insecurity, namely the insecurity related to feelings of identity,
where ʹout‐groups pose threats to important symbols that the in‐group holds to be
dearʹ (McLaren 2006: 69). The currency acts as an important symbol of the ʹin‐groupʹ.
In the case of euro outsiders, the national currency is a symbol of the nation and,
hence, the symbolic value of the national currency must be positively related to its
strength vis‐à‐vis other currencies (Hobolt and Leblond 2009). In other words, we
expect that people in countries with weaker currencies will be more favourably
disposed towards the adoption of the euro, ceteris paribus, than people in countries
with stronger national currencies. For euro insiders, however, the euro is the
ʹnational currencyʹ and hence we would expect that they view the monetary union
more positively when the value of the euro increases against its main ʹrivalʹ currency,
the US dollar (Banducci et al 2009). In both these situations, utilitarian and symbolic
considerations may, of course, lead to different perceptions of how exchange rate
affects economic and identity insecurities. In general, we would expect that symbolic
euro currency, since most citizens have a stronger affective attachment to their
national currency (and their nation) than people living in the eurozone have to the
euro (and the EU). This means that in the case of eurozone countries where the
9
economy is dominated by the manufacturing industry the utilitarian consideration is
likely to dominate the symbolic one. For eurozone economies dominated by the
services industry (and where the manufacturing industry tends to produce high‐
valued goods), the utilitarian perspective should either go in the same direction as
the symbolic one (e.g., a strong euro vis‐à‐vis the dollar makes the import of
intermediate as well as consumer goods cheaper) or the latter’s effect should
dominate that of the former. This leads to the following hypotheses:
H5: Public support for the euro in non‐eurozone countries increases as the national
currency depreciates against the euro, ceteris paribus.
H6: Public support for the euro in eurozone countries where the economy is
dominated by the services industry increases as the euro appreciates against the
dollar, ceteribus paribus.
Finally, we also expect that general levels of diffuse support for the European Union
will affect support for monetary integration. In countries where citizens feel that the
European Union poses less of a threat to national sovereignty and identity, they are
more likely to favor monetary integration.
H7: Public support for the euro is higher when diffuse support of membership of the
European Union is higher.
In the next sections, we present the data and methodology used to test the
hypotheses developed above as well as the results of this test.
4. Data
To examine public support for monetary integration, we rely on data from the
Eurobarometer (EB) and the Candidate countries Eurobarometer (CCEB), which are
conducted twice a year on behalf of the European Commission, surveying citizens in
each of the member states and candidate countries about their opinions on European
10
matters. We aggregate responses to a question about whether one was for or against
a “European Monetary Union with one single currency, the EURO” for each of the
27 EU member states plus Turkey, for the period from the introduction of the euro in
1999 to 2008 (the latest year where surveys were conducted).
Figure 3 displays the proportion of respondents who said they were in favor
of a single currency across four distinct groups of countries. The first group, Eurozone
12, is comprised of the eleven EU member‐states that formed the eurozone when the
euro came into existence on 1 January 1999. It also includes Greece, which was
admitted on 1 January 2001. The second group comprises the four Newcomers that
joined the eurozone at a later date: Slovenia, which joined on 1 January 2007; Cyprus
and Malta, which were admitted on 1 January 2008; and Slovakia, which joined on 1
January 2009. The third group, the Euro outsiders, represents the countries that have
chosen to remain outside the eurozone until now, despite being able to meet the
Maastricht convergence criteria: Denmark, Sweden and the UK. In both Denmark
and Sweden, the governments have been in favor of adopting the euro, but the
electorate rejected the proposal in referendums in 2000 and 2003. In Britain, the
official position of the government is that it is ʺin principle in favour of UK
membership of the euro but in practice the economic conditions must be rightʺ (UK
Treasury 2009). The final group is composed of the Euro hopefuls, which are the
remaining nine EU member states that have an official policy of joining the eurozone
when they meet the convergence criteria and Turkey, which is an EU candidate
country. 5
[FIGURE 3 ABOUT HERE]
Figure 3 shows an increase in support for the euro in both insider and outsider
countries after the physical coins and banknotes were introduced on 1 January 2002.
Not surprisingly, support for the euro is the lowest in the countries that have
voluntarily remained outside the eurozone and is the highest inside the zone. There
5
The two other official EU candidate countries are Croatia and FYR Macedonia, but we do not have
sufficient time series data for those two countries to include them in our analysis.
11
has been a decline in support among ʹeuro hopefulsʹ in recent years, but an increase
in support among the ʹnewcomersʹ, especially after they have adopted the currency.
In order to explain these changes and differences in euro support and test our
hypotheses, we rely on a number of indicators. The level of diffuse EU support is
operationalized as the proportion of respondents who say that ‘EU membership is a
good thing’ in each country, using Eurobarometer data. We also include a number of
economic indicators in our model. Most importantly, we include the exchange rate
between the US dollar and the euro. For euro‐outsiders, we also include the
exchange rate of the national currency against the euro. Because it reflects the central
bank’s ability to conduct monetary policy effectively (i.e. to maintain prices relatively
stable), the inflation rate is one of the economic measures included the analysis.
Other economic indicators are the unemployment rate, the short‐term interest rate,
and the GDP growth rate. Finally, a consumer confidence index serves to measure
subjective economic expectations; it gauges consumersʹ feelings about the current
condition of the economy and their expectations about the economyʹs future
direction. Details on data and their sources can be found in Appendix 1.
As discussed above, we expect the impact of these economic factors to
depend on whether a country is inside or outside the eurozone as well as whether its
economic structure is dominated by an export‐oriented manufacturing sector (where
citizens are sensitive to the loss of competitiveness resulting from a strong currency)
or by the services industry (where a strong currency is less likely to have a negative
impact on the economy, and in turn on people’s job security). We use five proxy
indicators to establish whether or not a country’s economy is dependent on a
manufacturing sector vulnerable to competition from emerging East Asian countries
and, hence, likely to be negatively impacted by a strong euro. These five indicators
are: Above EU average percentage of the labor force employed in the manufacturing
industry; below EU average employment in the services industry; below average
share of services in the economy (as percentage of GDP); below average labor
productivity; and, finally, textile specialization. Any country that meets three or
12
more of the above criteria is classified as being “manufacturing reliant”. 6 Of the
Eurozone 12, four member states fall within the manufacturing‐reliant (Greece, Italy,
Portugal and Spain), whereas 11 of 16 countries outside the eurozone meet these
criteria (see Appendix 2 for more details). In the next section, we analyze how
eurozone membership and differences in economic structure condition the effect of
the determinants of euro support.
5. Methods and Results
In order to test the hypotheses concerning support for the euro, we pool the biannual
data for each of the 28 countries (EU 27 plus Turkey) across the period 1999‐2008. 7
Both the temporal and spatial properties of this time‐series cross‐sectional (TSCS)
dataset make ordinary least squares problematic (Beck and Katz 1995; Beck 2001;
Plümper et al. 2005). In particular, models for TSCS data often allow for temporally
and spatially correlated errors as well as for panel heteroskedasticity. To address the
serial correlation of the errors in the TSCS framework, we followed the standard
practice of transforming the data (Beck and Katz 1995). We used the Prais‐Winsten
AR(1), and that the coefficient of the autocorrelation process is common to every
panel (Greene 1993: 456). 8 We followed also Beck and Katz’s (1995; 1996)
recommendation of using panel‐corrected standard errors (PCSE) to calculate the
standard errors. Although, in some cases, introducing a lagged dependent variable is
appropriate to account for the autocorrelation process, the number of observations
for each country (t) is sufficiently small to warrant excluding it from our models
(Achen 2000). Moreover, Achen (2000) and Plümper et al. (2005) show that a lagged
dependent variable can introduce biases. We also tested for unit (country)
cross‐sectional units, but detected the presence of significant heterogeneity among
6 The classification is based on an average across the entire period 1999‐2008. The five indicators are
highly correlated and our results remain robust if we classify cases according to each of the factors
separately.
7 Data on support for the euro is not available for the entire period for the countries that joined the EU in
2004 and 2007.
8 There are no major differences to the models if we specify a panel‐specific autocorrelation structure.
13
the units’ intercepts. As a result we estimated a fixed‐effects model that assumes a
separate intercept for each of the countries (Beck 2001).
We estimated three different sets of models. First, we estimate the effect of
our predictors on euro support inside and outside the eurozone (Table 1). Thereafter,
order to assess whether the structure of the economy conditions the effect of the
euro’s exchange rate with the US dollar on support for the single currency (Table 2).
Finally, we examine the effect on euro support of the exchange rate between the
national currency and the euro in countries located outside the eurozone (Table 3).
different effects on euro support whether individuals come from countries that are
located inside or outside the eurozone. As expected, higher levels of consumer
confidence lead to higher levels of support for the euro in countries located inside the
eurozone, while it is the opposite in countries that are outside the eurozone. Equally,
higher unemployment has a negative effect within EMU, but a positive effect on
support outside the eurozone, although the effect is only statistically significant
outside the zone. The coefficients for the growth rate have the expected sign but are
not statistically significant. As for inflation, the results are not in accordance with
expectations. For countries located outside the eurozone, the coefficient has the
wrong sign and, more importantly, is not statistically significant. For euro‐area
countries, the coefficient is not only positive but also statistically significant.
Interestingly, Banducci et al. (2009) find no effect of the actual inflation rate on Euro
support within the eurozone in their aggregate‐level analysis, but in their individual‐
level analysis they find that a subjective belief that prices (or inflation) are high leads
to low support for the euro. Survey evidence also show considerable ambivalence
among citizens about changes in price levels, which suggest that inflation rates may
not have the expected impact, because citizens are relatively unaware of actual
inflation rates (Banducci et al. 2009). Overall, in terms of hypotheses H1 and H2, the
evidence generally points in the expected direction, but it is not unequivocal. Finally,
as expected with hypothesis H3, a lower interest rate leads to higher levels of
support for monetary integration within the eurozone.
14
[INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE]
In Table 2, it is clearly shown that the effect of the exchange rate between the US
dollar and the euro depends on a countryʹs economic structure. Inside the eurozone,
the effect of a strong euro is only positive and significant in countries with an
economy dominated by services, whereas it is negative (but statistically insignificant)
in countries with economies that rely mainly on manufacturing sectors that are
vulnerable to foreign competition from countries in emerging East Asia. Equally,
outside the eurozone the effect of a strong euro vis‐à‐vis the dollar is very negative
and significant in the manufacturing reliant and exposed economies, but statistically
insignificant in services‐dominant economies. The results in Table 2 thus provide
considerable support for H4 (particularly outside the eurozone) as public support for
the euro declines as the euro appreciates in manufacturing‐reliant countries. H6 is
also corroborated, as support increases as the euro appreciates against the dollar in
service‐oriented countries inside the eurozone. Finally, we find that public support
for the euro increases when diffuse support the European Union is higher (H7).
[INSERT TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE]
In Table 3, we can observe that, outside the eurozone, when the national currency
weakens (or depreciates) against the euro (i.e. when one needs more of the national
currency to buy a euro), support for the single currency increases. This result holds
regardless of the economic structure of the country and, as a result, is in line with the
expectation of hypothesis H6. Hence, it confirms the argument that a decline in the
symbolic value of the national currency is associated with a higher level of support
for adopting the euro and entering EMU, independent of the level of the euro’s
exchange rate with the dollar.
[INSERT TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE]
15
In sum, the time‐series cross‐section analyses presented in tables 1 to 3 lend
considerable support to our hypotheses. They suggest that economic indicators, and
notably exchange rates, play an important role in explaining variation in public
support for the euro, even when controlling for diffuse EU support. However, the
effect of economic conditions on support depends on euro membership status,
whereas the effect of exchange rates is mediated by the economic structure. These
results are discussed in further detail in the next section.
6. Discussion
The results presented in the previous section confirm that economic insecurity
matters for euro support. For individuals located inside the eurozone, greater
economic insecurity is generally associated with lower support for the euro whereas
it is the opposite for people residing in countries that are outside the eurozone. The
key factors through which the impact of economic insecurity on euro support
expresses itself are consumer confidence and the exchange rate.
When individuals, as consumers, feel more confident about their country’s
economy, they are inclined to favor the status quo. This is one of the most robust
results obtained from the present analysis. This means that individuals within the
eurozone are more inclined to support the euro when they are more confident about
their national economy while those outside the eurozone prefer to keep the national
currency (i.e. not adopt the euro) when they feel more positive about the state of
their country’s economy. In fact, individuals’ perception of the state of the economy
generally appears to be more important in determining how they feel about the euro
than the objective state of their country’s economy.
Exchange rates matter for individuals’ opinion about the euro, thereby
confirming the results obtained by Banducci et al. (2003; 2009) and Hobolt and
Leblond (2009). The national currency represents a symbol of national identity that
more favorable to adopting the euro as a result. A similar argument can be made
about individuals in eurozone countries whose economic structure is based on
16
services, though in this case it is naturally the euro’s strength against the US dollar
that matters for the symbolic value that people attribute to the single currency. 9 More
importantly for the relationship between economic insecurity and euro support, the
exchange rate between the US dollar and the euro is a highly significant factor in
located outside the eurozone. For individuals in these countries, a strong euro is
perceived negatively, since it could put their jobs at risk by making the industries in
which they work less competitive against producers located in other emerging
countries where the national currency is pegged to the dollar, like China.
Consequently, they have little inclination to adopt the euro when it is strong. The
same line of argumentation probably also explains why individuals from
inflation and, as a result, become more supportive of the euro. Higher inflation
means higher prices, which potentially means reduced international competitiveness
if productivity does not increase or the currency does not depreciate accordingly. For
individuals residing in manufacturing‐reliant countries located inside the eurozone,
however, the dollar‐euro exchange rate and inflation do not seem to matter with
respect to their perception of the euro. 10
In light of the recent economic and financial crisis, these insights about
economic insecurity and the euro allow us to make a number of remarks regarding
the effects of the crisis on Europeans’ opinion regarding the single currency. First, the
rapid decline in EU consumers’ confidence in the economy’s prospects should lead to
a decrease in support for the euro for member states located inside the eurozone
while the opposite should generally hold in countries on the outside. According to
our results, this effect on euro support should be more significant in non‐eurozone
countries than in eurozone ones. This is because the coefficient for the impact of
9 There is also the possibility that a stronger euro is perceived positively by individuals in eurozone
countries where services dominate the economy because it makes imports cheaper for consumers;
private consumption and retailing play an important role in such economies. This alternative utilitarian
explanation is difficult to disentangle from the symbolic one. [check data for EU on consumption and
retailing]
10 Though, if one considers only Mediterranean countries inside the eurozone (Greece, Italy, Portugal
and Spain) and, therefore, excludes Slovenia, the exchange rate between the dollar and the euro
becomes significant both substantively and statistically, i.e. a strong euro leads to a decrease in support.
This is in line with the results in Figure 1a.
17
consumer confidence on euro support is greater for countries outside the eurozone
for those inside. Unfortunately, the embargo on Eurobarometer surveys conducted
after May 2008 makes it impossible to confirm such informed conjectures about the
impact of the crisis on euro support.
The recent strengthening of the euro vis‐à‐vis the US dollar (see Figure 2),
which occurred mainly as a result of the latter’s loss of value internationally, should
offset the effect of consumer confidence on public opinion regarding the euro. For
instance, because a stronger euro is positively associated with higher support for the
euro in eurozone countries where services dominate the economy, the effect of
reduced consumer confidence on euro support should be mitigated. On the other
hand, in non‐eurozone countries whose economies are reliant on manufacturing, a
stronger euro resulting from the crisis should work against the positive impact that
lower consumer confidence has on individuals’ support for the euro. In the
remaining cases, the euro’s exchange rate should not have any impact on public
opinion vis‐à‐vis the euro, leaving lower consumer confidence to push euro support
downwards or upwards, depending on whether the country is respectively located
inside or outside the eurozone.
Finally, where the crisis has led to a depreciation of national currencies in
non‐eurozone countries, this should favour support for the euro and, thereby, limit
the impact of lower consumer confidence and euro appreciation vis‐à‐vis the dollar
(for manufacturing‐reliant countries).
In sum, the expected impact of the recent economic and financial crisis on
support for the euro is not clear cut. This is because two key factors affecting people’s
opinion about the single currency, lower consumer confidence and higher dollar‐
euro exchange rate, partially offset each other. Furthermore, for countries outside the
eurozone, assuming strong pressures for the national currency to depreciate, the
impact of the crisis on euro support will depend on whether the exchange rate
regime is a fix one or not and, if it is, on whether the monetary authority is able to
prevent a devaluation or not.
7. Conclusion
18
As mentioned in the introduction, there appears to be a general belief that the 2007‐
2009 financial crisis has made the European single currency more popular. Some
experts such as Jones (2009) go as far as to suggest that without the euro, things
would have been worse than if the old system of fixed exchange rate prevailed. This
is why he writes: “Thus, the eurozone is more likely to get larger than it is to get
smaller” (42). Surprisingly, surveyed Europeans do not share such sanguine views
about the euro in the context of the crisis. As indicated, only a minority of
respondents think that the euro has (or would have) made things better with respect
to the crisis. In order to shed light on this apparent paradox, this paper investigates
the relationship between economic insecurity and public support for the European
single currency.
The overall conclusion is that economic insecurity does negatively affect euro
support. For countries located within the eurozone, greater economic insecurity, as
measured by consumers’ (lower) confidence about the economy’s future prospects, is
generally associated with lower support for the euro, whereas the opposite holds in
non‐eurozone countries. However, a strong euro relative to the US dollar, which
could be an indication of stability, can be a source of economic insecurity, depending
on whether European economies are dominated by manufacturing or services. In the
former case, a stronger euro is likely to mean a loss of competitiveness for
manufacturing sectors that compete against producers in emerging Asian countries
that peg their currencies to the US dollar. In the latter case, a strong euro could
reduce economic insecurity if it means cheaper imported goods, whether for
production or consumption.
Given that the international value of the US dollar is an important (indirect)
determinant of euro support, the continued decline of the dollar could make it more
convince their populations that adopting the euro is the right thing to do. This means
that it is important for the EU to address the issue of the global imbalances caused in
large part by many East Asian countries (see Cova et al. 2009; Chinn and Ito 2008; The
Economist 2009). For example, the EU should pressure China to allow the yuan (or
renminbi) to appreciate vis‐à‐vis the US dollar as well as discourage her from
19
abandoning the dollar in favour of the euro when it comes to holding her foreign
reserves. This also means that pushing for the euro to become a global reserve
currency in replacement of the dollar may not be such a good idea if EU leaders want
to maintain or increase euro support in manufacturing‐reliant member states.
Finally, in view of resolving global imbalances, the EU has to make sure that the
Obama administration adopts proper macroeconomic policies (especially fiscal ones)
that will sustain the value of the US dollar internationally.
Although the exchange rate between the euro and the dollar represents a key
element in the relationship between economic insecurity and euro support, it also
plays an important symbolic role whereby, in eurozone countries where services
dominate the economy, the relative strength of the single currency contributes to
pushing people’s support for the euro higher. The difficulty here is to clearly
demarcate between the utilitarian and identity dimensions of the effect of the euro‐
dollar exchange rate on people’s views about the single currency. The results found
herein confirm the importance of the identity dimension for explaining euro support,
since a lower value of the national currency relative to the euro for non‐eurozone
countries leads a larger number of their people to prefer replacing it with the
European single currency.
As Hobolt and Leblond (2009) found when they studied the specific cases of
the Danish and Swedish euro referendums, the present analysis makes clear that the
exchange rate is a major determinant of individuals’ opinion about the European
single currency. Which exchange rate matters and how it does depends on whether a
country is located inside or outside the eurozone and whether its economy is mainly
reliant on manufacturing or services. This means that EU policy‐makers who are
interested in increasing support for the euro, especially in member states outside the
eurozone, and ignore the relative value of the euro as well as that of the national
currency do so at their own peril.
20
Tables and Figures
Figure 1a: Percentage of respondents in the eurozone who think that the national
currency would have offered better protection against the recent economic crisis
Slovakia 16%
Finland 22%
Slovenia 23%
Netherlands 26%
Luxembourg 28%
Ireland 30%
Malta 33%
Belgium 36%
Austria 38%
France 41%
Germany 45%
Greece 48%
Cyprus 52%
Spain 53%
Italy 53%
Portugal 62%
Source: European Commission (2009), Question QD6a, pp. 35‐36.
21
Figure 1b: Percentage of respondents outside the eurozone who think that the euro
would have offered better protection against the recent economic crisis
Hungary 61%
Romania 44%
Poland 41%
Estonia 39%
Sw eden 36%
Denmark 34%
Latvia 34%
UK 28%
Lithuania 27%
Bulgaria 17%
Source: European Commission (2009), Question QD6b, pp. 37‐38.
22
USD/EURO
19
99
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
Ja
19 n
99
J
20 ul
00
Ja
20 n
00
J
20 ul
01
Ja
20 n
01
and the euro, 1999‐2009
J
20 ul
02
Ja
20 n
02
J
Source: European Central Bank
20 ul
03
Ja
20 n
03
J
20 ul
04
Ja
20 n
USD
04
J
20 ul
05
Ja
20 n
Yuan
05
J
20 ul
06
Ja
20 n
06
J
20 ul
07
Ja
20 n
07
J
20 ul
08
Ja
20 n
08
J
20 ul
09
Ja
n
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
YUAN/EURO
23
Figure 2: Exchange rates between the US dollar and the euro and the Chinese yuan
Figure 3: Support for the euro, 1999‐2008
Note: Eurozone 12: original 11 Eurozone members + Greece; Newcomers: Cyprus, Malta, Slovakia,
Slovenia; Euro outsiders: Denmark, Sweden, UK; Euro hopefuls: remaining non‐Eurozone member states +
Turkey.
24
Table 1: Support for the euro inside and outside the eurozone (1999‐2008)
N 247 221
Countries 15 16
R squared 0.69 0.64
Rho 0.71 0.52
Note: The fixed-effects models were estimated using a Prais-Winsten regression, allowing for autocorrelation in the
error terms over one period (AR1), and the reported standard errors are panel-corrected (PCSE).
***p<0.01; **p<0.05; *p<0.1
25
Table 2: Euro support and economic structure (1999‐2008)
EU membership a good thing 0.33*** 0.03 0.31*** 0.07 0.61*** 0.09 0.41*** 0.06
USD-Euro exchange rate 13.39*** 1.57 -6.51 6.16 -3.98 6.48 -22.78*** 7.27
Consumer confidence 0.10*** 0.03 0.17* 0.09 -0.25*** 0.06 -0.26*** 0.07
Interest rates -2.76*** 0.36 0.10 0.81 -1.63 1.11 -0.03 0.15
N 172 75 81 140
Countries 10 5 5 11
R squared 0.69 0.72 0.64 0.76
Rho 0.70 0.67 0.53 0.50
Note: The fixed-effects models were estimated using a Prais-Winsten regression, allowing for autocorrelation in the error terms over one period (AR1),and the reported standard errors are panel-
corrected (PCSE).
***p<0.01; **p<0.05; *p<0.1
26
Table 3: Euro support and strength of the national currency outside the Eurozone
Services Manufacturing
Coef. PCSE Coef. PCSE Coef. PCSE Coef. PCSE
EU membership a good thing 0.65*** 0.09 0.68*** 0.08 0.44*** 0.06 0.42*** 0.063
National currency-euro exchange
4.12** 2.16 4.42** 5.70 2.99*** 0.52 2.40*** 0.51
rate
USD-euro exchange rate - - -5.39 2.07 - - -19.57*** 6.77
Inflation -1.11 0.99 -1.18 0.96 -0.29 0.21 -0.38* 0.20
Unemployment 0.60 0.77 0.67 0.75 0.38 0.31 -0.05 0.26
Consumer confidence -0.39*** 0.10 -0.41*** 0.09 -0.20** 0.08 -0.21*** 0.07
Growth -0.67 0.52 -0.59 0.51 -0.36 0.28 -0.48* 0.26
Interest rates -0.77 1.17 -0.64 1.10 -0.03 0.16 -0.07 0.16
Constant 11.68 11.05 15.25 12.00 28.08*** 5.00 60.49*** 10.99
N 81 81 140 140
Countries 5 5 11 11
R squared 0.68 0.69 0.68 0.73
Rho 0.39 0.39 0.43 0.45
Note: The fixed-effects models were estimated using a Prais-Winsten regression, allowing for autocorrelation in the error terms over one period (AR1),and the reported standard errors are panel-
corrected (PCSE).
***p<0.01; **p<0.05; *p<0.1
27
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31
APPENDIX 1: Data sources and descriptions
Support for the euro
Eurobarometer surveys EB51, EB52, EB53, EB54.1, EB55.1, EB56.2, EB57.1, EB59,
EB59.1, EB60.1, EB61, EB62, EB63.4, EB64.2, EB65.2, EB66.1, EB67.2, EB68.1, EB69.2
Support for EU membership
Eurobarometer surveys: EB510, EB520, EB530, EB541, EB551, EB562, EB571, EB61,
EB62, EB622, EB634, EB642, EB652, EB672, EB681, EB692
USD‐Euro exchange rate
European Central Bank
National currency‐euro exchange rates
European Central Bank: Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Czech Republic, Hungaria,
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom,
Central Bank of Malta: Greece, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta, Cyprus
Inflation
Eurostat: Annual rate of change in Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HCIP)
Unemployment
Economist Intelligence Unit, Eurostat, OECD, Turkish Statistical Institute
Consumer confidence
Eurostat, OECD, Central Bank of Turkey
Economic growth
Eurostat, OECD: Quarterly GDP (expenditure approach) growth rate compared to
the same quarter of previous year, seasonally adjusted
32
Interest rate
Economist Intelligence Unit, Eurostat, IMF (IFS), OECD: monthly average of day‐to‐
day money market rates
33
APPENDIX 2: Manufacturing reliance and vulnerability
EU 27 average 28 62 50 100
Note: The manufacturing sensitivity dummy is allocated to countries that have a score above the
EU average in terms on the sensitivity of its manufacturing industry on at least 3 of the 5 indicators:
Employment in industry (above 28%); Employment in services (below 62%); Service as % of GDP
(below 50%); Labor productivity (below 100); Textile specialisation (yes)
Sources: Eurostat, World Development Indicators (World Bank)
34