THE EUROZONE—A CHICKEN GAME WHERE EVERY MEMBER CAN BLOW IT UP?

December 17, 2011 at 4:05 PM · Economics, History, Politics

THE EUROZONE—A CHICKEN GAME WHERE EVERY MEMBER CAN BLOW IT UP? I began a discussion of chicken games in connection with the debt ceiling negotiations (here is some of the discussion). Radek Sikorski, the Foreign Minister of Poland, gave a speech which has received a lot of attention. One of his points was: “The Euro zone crisis is a more dramatic manifestation of the European malaise because its founders created a system in which each of its members has the capacity to bring it down, with appalling costs to themselves and the entire neighborhood.” In other words, the Eurozone can be thought of as a chicken game in which any of 17 members can threaten to blow everything up.