专家和政界都将欧元危机归咎于那些违反预算条例、恣意挥霍的国家，因为预算条例正是欧元这个单一货币的重要支柱。如果西班牙、意大利和希腊能压缩令人瞠目的预算赤字，遏制如山般债务的增长，专家们相信欧元区经济仍能恢复繁荣。因此，迄今提出的一些解决方案都是围绕“财政整合”进行，即实施新的法规，赋予欧盟（European Union）限制成员国支出和负债的广泛权力，同时出台严厉的处罚措施，确保欧元区成员国无人敢逾越雷池。

    这就是2011年12月份德国总理默克尔和法国总统萨科齐举行峰会期间所商谈草案的核心。本周一，这两位领导人又在柏林会晤，重申将制定针对欧元区17个成员国的“财政协议”，并在3月1日前签署严厉的新条例和处罚措施。

    然而，这个计划不会奏效。欧洲的主要问题并不是成员国的债务和赤字规模。事实上，目前欧元区的债务/GDP比率还不到90%，数字虽高，但明显低于美国的100%，更别提日本的227%。

    真正的问题在于经济增长：欧元区弱国如果继续接受欧元的桎梏，就难以实现增长。意大利或希腊就无法取得足够的税收收入来压缩预算赤字、减轻债务负担，也不能获得足够的出口额来创造新的就业机会。换言之，经济体制的国家无力承担美国这样的经济增长国家所能够应对的财政压力。

核心是竞争

    欧洲弱国为什么不能实现经济增长？原因很简单：它们的经济在国际市场上缺乏竞争力，因为它们被超高估的货币所拖累，而这些国家以及它们强大的北方邻国似乎执意要保留这个货币。要理解为什么欧元的弊病，最简单的办法就是问一问这些陷入困境的国家假如恢复本国货币，将会怎样？恢复本国货币后，货币汇率将由市场决定，而不是由外界强加。

    如果全球消费者和投资者用美元、日元对希腊或意大利的商品和作物进行投票，新的德拉克马或里拉的汇率可能会比当前的欧元低30%。结论：全球市场之所以不购买这些国家以欧元计价的商品，是因为这些深陷危机的国家汇率被高估了40%以上。

    带着这样的镣铐，希腊、葡萄牙或西班牙根本没有竞争力，也很难实现经济增长。“财政协议”也无法改变市场的取向。

    让欧元区弱国陷于不利境地的是一个有点学究气但非常重要的指标，即单位劳动力成本，比如生产一辆汽车、一台个人电脑或一台反铲挖土机的劳动力成本。（劳动力通常占到总费用的70%）。假设在西班牙需要3个工人花1个小时来生产一个小装置，在德国2个工人就够了，即德国经济的生产率要高得多。虽然如此，西班牙工人的工资仍然达到了德国工人的90%。因此，在西班牙生产的这个小装置其成本至少要比德国生产的高出25%。

    Pundits and politicians are blaming the euro's crisis on profligate nations that violated the budget rules designed as a pillar of the single currency. If Spain, Italy and Greece could shrink their yawning budget deficits and halt the rise in their mountainous debt, the experts argue, prosperity would return to the eurozone. Hence, the proposed solutions are all about "fiscal integration," imposing new regulations that would give the European Union broad authority to impose spending and borrowing limits in the member states -- with penalties so strict that no eurozone member could stray.

    That's the basis of the blueprint negotiated at a December summit between German Chancellor Merkel and French President Sarkozy. On Monday, the two leaders met in Berlin to renew their pledge to present a "fiscal compact" for the 17 eurozone countries, promising a new set of stiff rules and penalties by March 1.

    Their master plan won't work. Europe's principal problem isn't the size of its members' debt and deficits. In fact, the eurozone's debt to GDP ratio now stands at less than 90%, a big number, but well below the U.S. level of 100%, not to mention Japan's 227% ratio.

    The real rub is growth: The weak eurozone nations can barely grow as long as they remain in harnessed to the euro. As a result, an Italy or Greece can't generate the tax revenues to shrink those deficits, or lower their debt burden, nor can they generate the exports needed to create new jobs. In other words, the fiscal burdens that a "growth" nation such as the U.S. can handle prove insurmountable for countries that can't grow.

Competition at the core

    Why can't Europe's weaklings grow? The reason is basic: Their economies are uncompetitive on world markets so long as they're stuck with an extremely over-valued currency that they and their powerful northern neighbors seem determined to preserve. The easiest way to understand why the euro isn't working is to ask what would happen if the ailing nations restored their own currencies, so that their value was established by the market, instead of imposed upon them.

    If the world's consumers and investors voted with their dollars and yen for Greek or Italian products and plants, a new Drachma or Lira would be worth perhaps 30% less than the current euro. Conclusion: By shunning their goods at these prices, the global market is telling us that the stricken countries' currencies are overvalued by more than 40%.

    A Greece, Portugal, or Spain simply can't compete, or grow, with that handicap. A "fiscal compact" will not change the market's verdict.

    What's pummeling weaklings is a wonkish but crucial number called "unit labor costs." It refers to the labor cost of making one car, PC or backhoe. (Labor typically accounts for 70% of total expense.) Let's say it takes three workers an hour to make a widget in Spain, and two workers can do the same job in Germany, meaning that the German economy is a lot more productive. Nevertheless, the Spanish workers earn 90% of German wages. The Spanish widget is going to cost at least 25% more than the German model.

    因此，西班牙生产的这种小装置在国际市场上将毫无竞争力，除非西班牙货币对德国货币的汇率能降至西班牙单位劳动力成本低于德国的水平。欧元诞生前，这样的货币贬值过程经常会出现。但现在已经不可能。

    为了搞清危机怎么会突然爆发，不妨先简单回顾一下欧元从救世主变为破坏者的历程。正是欧元的影响，致使欧元区强国和弱国之间的单位劳动力成本差距较欧元诞生前进一步扩大，而意大利、希腊则丧失了之前藉以维持经济增长的重要缓冲机制。

弱国更弱

    为了简单一点，我们把欧元区分为两部分，一部分是“核心”强国，主要是德国、荷兰和奥地利，另一部分则是“南部”地区，包括意大利、西班牙、希腊和葡萄牙，以及地理上不属于该区域但同样深陷困境的爱尔兰。即使是在1999年1月1日欧元诞生前，南部国家的利率正处于大幅下降通道。到2005年左右，消费者和政府的借款利率不到5%，低于十年前的12%。信贷猛增，宽松的货币主要流向了那些无外国竞争的产业，即经济学家所谓的“非外贸产业”，包括从房地产、保险、景观设计到美发护发等众多行业。

    因此，这些严格内需型产业的薪资和价格飙升。从90年代末到00年代末，欧洲南部国家的价格增幅平均高出德国和其他核心国家1.5%。

    卡内基基金会（Carnegie Endowment）驻华盛顿的经济学家乌里•达迪什称：“偶们的单一货币政策对弱国而言太为宽松，而对德国和北部国家而言又过紧。”宽松的货币政策使得欧洲南部国家的消费者和政府的借款利率远低于国内通胀率，鼓励他们背负高额债务，其中主要来自国外借债。

    薪资上涨是另一个棘手的问题。非外贸产业的繁荣发展导致劳动力市场供不应求，出口行业的薪资也水涨船高，因为他们只能与建筑行业争夺人手。除了爱尔兰，欧元区弱国大多并没有采取什么措施来改善刚性的劳动力市场。而且，事实上这些国家的法律更多地服务于确保薪资的增速高于生产率的增速。严格的劳动法规和本国劳动力市场需求的猛增两相结合，导致截至2007年的十年间，欧洲南部国家的薪资每年增幅高达5.9%，比欧元区核心国家高出了2.7个百分点。

    但欧洲南部国家的薪资高增长难以持续。单一货币政策对德国的影响正相反：在德国，利率太高，抑制了经济增长。德国的薪资增幅显著低于希腊和西班牙。这又回到了单位劳动力成本。从2000年到2010年，希腊薪资增长了36%，意大利和西班牙增长了31%，爱尔兰增长了29%。而德国的增幅只有4%。因此，德国和其他核心国家获得了巨大的竞争优势，而南欧国家则沦落到靠借贷度日。美国和中国（也与德国）一样，两者同样也受益于美元和人民币兑欧元汇率的下跌。

    Spain can still sell its widgets abroad, but only if its currency declines versus the German money to the point where its wages are lower than German wages. That adjustment process was constantly happening in the pre-euro days. Now, it can't happen.

    To understand how the crisis struck so unexpectedly, let's briefly examine the euro's savior-to-spoiler history. It was the euro's influence that caused unit labor costs in the strong vs weak economies to diverge far faster than they did in the pre-euro days, and that simultaneously eliminated the crucial shock absorber that allowed an Italy or Greece to keep growing in the past.

The weak get weaker

    To simplify, we'll divide the eurozone into the two parts, the "core" stronger economies, chiefly Germany, the Netherlands and Austria, and the "southern" zone of Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal, and one ailing nation that doesn't belong geographically, Ireland. Even before the euro was introduced on January 1, 1999, interest rates were falling sharply in for the southern countries. By the mid-2000s, consumers and governments were borrowing at less than 5%, compared to 12% a decade earlier. Credit exploded, and the easy money flowed mainly into industries that don't face foreign competition, what economists call the "non-traded sector," encompassing everything from real estate to insurance to landscaping and hair care.

    As a result, wages and prices in those strictly domestic industries soared. From the late 1990s to the late 2000s, prices rose an average of 1.5% faster in the southern countries than in the Germany and rest of the core.

    "The single monetary policy was too loose for the weaker countries, and too tight for Germany and the northern nations," says Uri Dadush, an economist at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, DC. The easy money allowed both consumers and governments in the southern nations to borrow at rates far lower than the pace of inflation inside their borders, encouraging both to pile on huge debt, chiefly from abroad.

    The march of wages was another daunting problem. The boom in the non-traded sector caused a tight labor market, and drove up pay for exporters who had to compete with the construction industry for workers. It didn't help that, with the exception of Ireland, the weaker countries did nothing to tame their extremely inflexible labor markets. The laws in those countries are virtually designed to raise wages faster than productivity growth. The combination of rigid labor laws and the explosion in domestic demand caused wages in the southern zone to jump 5.9% a year for the decade ending in 2007, 2.7 points faster than in core Europe.

    The southern zone's growth spurt was ephemeral. The blanket monetary policy had precisely the reverse effect on redoubtable Germany, where rates were too high, restraining growth. German wages didn't see nearly the increases that Greece or Spain experienced. That brings us back to unit labor costs. From 2000 to 2010, they rose 36% in Greece, 31% in Italy and Spain, and 29% in Ireland. For Germany, the figure was 4%. So Germany and the other core countries gained an enormous competitive edge while the south lived on borrowing, as did the U.S. and China, which also benefited from a fall in the dollar and yuan versus the euro.

效仿爱尔兰

    但这只是问题的一个方面。另一方面，来自德国、中国和美国的进口商品价格远低于意大利人和西班牙人过去购买的国产货。廉价的进口商品大批涌入，取代了西班牙、意大利国产商品。

    欧洲南部国家的经济泡沫破灭后，这些国家既无法通过扩大出口来恢复经济增速，国内产业又无力与进口商品竞争。它们的产品无论是在国际市场、还是在本国市场，都显得太昂贵了。

    欧洲南部国家正在尽自己的力量，试图恢复一点竞争力。西班牙、意大利和希腊的利率飙升最终缓和了薪资上涨的势头，因此单位劳动力成本已经停止攀升。但薪资增幅的放缓还远不足以让这些国家恢复到欧元诞生前的经济增速。

    南部国家已经陷入绝境。要将单位劳动力成本降至让他们具有国际竞争力的水平，欧洲南部国家只有两条道路。第一条是大幅降低薪资，否则就必须大幅提高生产率，出售效率低下的国有控股公司，清理限制性的劳动法规以及错综复杂、抑制竞争的法律法规。

    迄今为止，只有爱尔兰是选择了这条痛苦的道路。希腊、西班牙和意大利似乎无意跟进。它们目前没有实施严厉改革，但这并不意味着欧元一定会终结。

    “我不太相信弱国退出欧元区是不可避免的结局，” 达迪什说。“它们可以凭借减债和富国的拨款，继续留在欧元区。”不过，选择这条道路，未来西班牙、意大利和其他国家的经济增速将注定非常缓慢。

    第二条道路是恢复本国货币，选择大部分债务违约，但经济增速将高得多。欧元已然宣告失败。欧元区所有成员国的最优选择是彻底解除市场管制，享受本国货币的灵活性。如果欧洲南部国家选择第一条道路，他们将永远也不会成为富有活力的经济体。如果他们选择第二条道路，至少经济还能实现增长。

    欧元区不解体，危机就不会终结，它还会持续很长时间，在未来数年给全球经济前景蒙上阴影。长痛不如短痛。眼见前景黯淡，可能丧失出口和经济增长能力，欧元区弱国可能最终会转向他们现在还认为不可想象的解决方案，那就是退出这个货币联盟，尽管三年前他们还视欧元为救世主。

Following Ireland's lead

    That's only half the story. German, Chinese and American imports became far cheaper than domestically produced goods that Italians and Spaniards used to buy. A flood of cheap imports replaced goods that Spain or Italy used to make at home.

    When the domestic bubbles popped in the southern tier, their nations couldn't increase exports to restore growth, and their domestic industries frequently couldn't compete with imports. Their products were simply too expensive both on world markets, and in their own shops and supermarkets.

    The southern tier is doing its part to restore a bit of competitiveness. The sharp increase in rates for Spain, Italy and Greece has finally moderated the rise in wages, so that the unit labor cost gap is no longer growing. But wage growth isn't shrinking remotely fast enough to restore anything resembling the countries' pre-euro growth rates.

    The southern countries are in a box. They have only two options to lower their unit labor costs to the level where they can compete on the world stage: They must substantially lower wages, or they must become far more productive by selling off inefficient, state-controlled companies and eliminating restrictive labor laws and a maze of anti-competitive regulations.

    So far, Ireland is the only nation that has pursued that painful course. Greece, Spain and Italy show little inclination to follow. Their failure to enact draconian reforms doesn't necessarily spell the end to the euro.

    "I'm very hesitant to say that leaving the euro is inevitable for the weaker countries," says Dadush. "They can stay in with a combination of debt relief and grants from the richer countries." That course, however, sentences Spain, Italy and the others to a future of extremely slow growth.

    The alternative is to restore their own currencies, default on a big portion of their debt, and then grow far faster. The euro has failed. The best option is for all eurozone members to radically deregulate their markets, and also enjoy the flexibility of their own currencies. Unless they do the former, they will never become vibrant economies. But if they do the latter, at least they can grow again.

    If the eurozone stays together, the crisis won't end. It will drag on a lot longer, burdening the world economy with years of uncertainty. It may be best to take the pain now. Faced with grinding, stagnant future, unable to export or grow, the weaklings may eventually warm to the solution they now brand as unthinkable, an exit from a union that just three years ago looked like their salvation.