Overborrowing and Balance of Payments Imbalances in a Monetary Union

The sources of the balance of payments imbalances in the Euro area can be characterized by a combination of four phenomena: (i) the credit imbalances between the core and the periphery of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) (ii) the credit misallocation between the tradable and the nontradable sectors in the periphery (iii) the rapid increase in the output and the price of nontradable goods in the periphery since the beginning of the EMU and (iv) the current account imbalances within the EMU. This paper explains all four of these stylized facts within a single model as a result of the interaction between the common monetary policy, inflation heterogeneity and a relaxation of the credit constraint in the nontradable sector of the periphery. When nontradable goods are used as collateral, an increase in their prices can initiate an overborrowing spiral and lead to a balance of payment imbalances. Furthermore, the model endogenizes differences in unit labor costs between the core and the periphery of the Euro area.