Just round the corner? Pros, cons, and implementation issues of a fiscal union for the euro area

The experience of other successful monetary unions and economic theory suggest that the euro area would benefit from the establishment of a supranational fiscal capacity. Institutional reforms prompted by the crisis (e.g., the European Stability Mechanism and the banking union) are introducing though to a limited extent elements of cross-country risk sharing. Nevertheless, further steps are probably needed. Proposals to create a sort of rainy-day fund present major practical difficulties associated, inter alia, to the uncertainty characterizing the identification of shocks in real time. A more appropriate solution, consistent with how risk sharing operates in existing federations, may be centralizing specific public functions (for instance, by introducing a common unemployment benefit scheme). We argue that consideration could also be given to the creation of a euro-wide, notional defined-contribution pension scheme.