The CBA of the EU fiscal unification and Mr. Cameron's failure in the Game Theory

The Eurozone countries are no longer able to give up the monetary union.

Even though the cost of continuing the monetary union is high, the loss of benefit when they dissolve the monetary union is very high.

As one of this blog entries [Sunday, September 04, 2011: Empirical evidence prooving Liquidity-trap: Lower interest rate does not stimulate economy ] demonstrated, all Eurozone member countries, except for Ireland, share a strongly harmonised business cycle. The dependency of these Eurozone countries (excluding Ireland) on the inter member state is extremely high.

Furthermore, when these countries abolish using the Euro, the value of their national debt will be almost worthless. Majority of Eurozone nations, especially the Mediterranean ones and the newly entered Eastern European countries, were benenefitted from their national debt value based on the value of Euro. These national debt is valued not only on the credit of these countries itself but also the credit rate of the entire Eurozone economy. Therefore, leaving or dissolving the Eurozone will decrease the value of their national debt, so these countries will suffer in their public finance. This means that these countries eventually have to go back to the old system relying on the excess money supply which induces a high inflation in their countries. (* Read "2. The problem caused by the monetary policy transformation" in [Saturday, July 23, 2011: The European Monetary Union is inevitable, but has to be fundamentally revised ])

Even Germany will be indifferent between restoring German national currency and keeping the Euro. German GDP relies on the export and German industries expanding their business in the EU member states with a low cost of labour, corporation tax, land, and utilities. In addition, German tourists visiting European (Tourism is an import from foreign countries to home countries: The monetary transaction of Germans touring foreign countries is German import from abroad). Therefore, the cost of German economy of leaving/relinquishing Euro is equally significantly high as same as keeping and assisting the European Monetary Union (EMU) by German effort. Germany may do well even she leaves/dissolves the EMU. But, the loss of the benefit Germany is gaining from the EMU is certain, and the cost of leaving/relinqushing Euro is uncertain.

All in all, even though the cost of keeping the EMU is high, the balance of the both cost and benefit all these Eurozone countries have is certain. The benefit will be certainly lowered by dissolving the EMU for both Germany and the rest of the member nations. Thus, the certainty of keeping and improving the EMU is certain at least, therefore the optimum solution for the European economy despite the high cost of reforming and maintaining the EMU.


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2. Mr. Cameron's failure in the Game Theory

On the other hand, the UK and Ireland will suffer from participating thsi scheme due to their independent (dis-harmonised) business cycle with the continental Europe. However, I would like to blame Mr. Cameron's unwise way to excuse to avoid participating with the European fiscal integration. The diplomacy is a serious mind game. As I have studied the "Game theory", I understand the importance of reading the mind of opponents, and not being too honest.


This considers both prisoners do not trust each other fully and there is no communication taken place between them.

Even though both can gain the best outcome (if they still think of each other as friend) by cooperating together by insisting both of them are not guilty, they are more likely to incooperate with each other. The most likely outcome will be that both prisoners will be guilty. This is because you can obtain the better outcome only for "yourself" by betraying your partner. You also may think that your partner is also about to betray you to gain the better outcome than helping you. Therefore, both you confess your partner is guilty and your partner confesses you are guilty.

However, if both of prisoners trusted each other and cooperated together to support each other, then both of them would not confess their partner is guilty.



Ms. Markel's feeling must feel like Henry (the guy in this picture) betrayed by Dave (Wow, same name as Mr. Cameron's first name accidently lol). In the conference, Ms. Merkel said that the best outcome would be that all the EU nations including both the Eurozone and the non-Eurozone cooperate together. However, it fell into the "second" best outcome in which not all but many EU nations agree to participate. From now, not only Germany but also the other EU nations start regarding the UK as an incooperating member in the Game Theory. All cooperating EU nations will act like the prisoners trusting in the previously shown matrix. By contrast, between the UK and the Europe will be the prisoners not trusting each other in the matrix.

When one player, whose chose has a high influence, chooses an incooperative answer, it will be a threat on the opponents. Now, the EU has started to see the UK to be an incooperative opponent (The free rider) so that the EU's treatment on the UK will become harsh from now.

If Mr. Cameron wanted to keep a distance from this treaty on the fiscal unification, he should have pretended he would still cooperate with them but inducing the consequence for the UK not to sacrifice her national interest a lot..... The U.K. obviously wants to avoid being too much involved in the fiscal unification. It burdens a cost on the UK because the UK is a relatively richer country so the EU expects Britain to participate or even sacrifice herself to help the EU. However, it is an extremely tough task for the U.K. to declare keeping distance from the EU fiscal unification plan. The U.K. has signed up the trade agreement with the EU since the U.K. joined the EU so that the U.K. has a responsibility for the entire European economy. Therefore, the U.K. has to be very wise to keep the distance by preventing the situation that the EU realises the U.K. is incooperative. I do not have any particular advice for Mr. Cameron. But he should have not been too honest to show the U.K. keeps an incooperative attitude on the current EU fiscal unification. We should have learned from what Machiavelli taught in his book "Prince" to act wisely in a foreign diplomatic game...!