Shobhit Seth   2016年7月18日

欧盟的形成为在单一货币（欧元）下形成一个统一的多国金融系统铺平了道路。虽然大多数欧盟成员国都采用了欧元，但是还有一少部分国家决定坚持使用自己本国的法定货币，例如英国、丹麦和瑞典。本文将讨论为什么一些欧盟成员国不使用欧元和这将为其经济带来什么好处？

欧盟有28个成员国，其中9个国家不在使用欧元的统一货币体系欧元区中。英国和丹麦就是这其中的两个国家，他们被合法的免除使用欧元。所有其他国家在满足一定标准后必须加入欧元区。然而这些国家有权利推迟达到欧元区标准的时间，从而推迟采用欧元的时间。

欧盟国家的文化、气候、人口和经济存在着差异。这些国家面临的金融需求和挑战也不一样。共同货币把统一实行的中央货币政策强加给这些国家。然而问题是对一个欧元区国家经济来说很好的政策可能根本不适合另一个国家。大多数未加入欧元区的国家是为了保持经济独立。下面是一些欧盟国家为什么不使用欧元的一些原因。

保持独立起草货币政策的能力。因为欧洲央行（ECB）为所有的欧元区国家设定经济和货币政策，欧元区国家没有为本国制定政策的权利。非欧元区国家英国成功从2007-2008经济危机中快速复苏是因为迅速在2008年10月下调了利率和在2009年三月展开了量化宽松。相反，欧洲央行直到2015年才开始量化宽松。

独立处理国家的特殊挑战。每个国家都面临不同的挑战。例如，希腊利率变动的敏感性高，因为其大部分抵押贷款是可变动利率而不是固定利率。然而，限于欧洲央行的规定，希腊不能独立实行对其经济和民众最有利的利率。与此同时，英国经济对利率变化也非常敏感。但是英国是非欧元区国家，它可以通过其央行英格兰银行把利率控制在低水平。

最后贷款人的独立。一个国家的经济对国债收益率非常敏感。同样的，非欧元区国家在这上面也有优势。他们有自己的中央银行能够成为该国债务的最后贷款人。一旦债券收益率上升，这些中央银行可以开始购买债券从而提供市场的流动性。欧元区国家的央行是欧洲央行，但是欧洲央行不会在那种情况下购买成员国债券。结果是像意大利这样的国家就必须面对债券收益率上涨带来的挑战。 

独立的通胀控制措施。当一个经济体的通胀上升，一个有效的应对措施是提高利率。非欧元区国家可以通过他们独立的监管部门完成这一举动。欧元区国家却不总是能有这一选择。例如，经济危机之后，欧洲央行因为担心德国的通胀过高而提高利率。这一举措对德国有利，但是像意大利和葡萄牙的其他国家却因此遭受了损失。

能独立的进行货币贬值。国家可能因为周期性高通胀、高工资、出口减少或者工业产能降低而面临经济挑战。这些情况可以通过对该国货币进行贬值得到缓解，货币贬值能使该国出口商品更加便宜和更具吸引力，并能吸引国外投资者。非欧元区国家可以根据需要自行对货币贬值。然而欧元区国家却不能独立改变货币价值，因为这是欧洲央行控制的并且会对其他19个国家造成影响。

总结

欧元刚推出时给欧元起国家带来了繁荣。这个统一货币的使用消除了汇率波动（和相关成本）、带来了货币统一的欧洲市场和价格透明度。然而，2007-2008的金融危机暴露了欧元的一些缺陷。一些欧元区经济体遭受了比其它国家更大的损失（例如希腊、西班牙、意大利和葡萄牙）。由于缺乏经济独立性，这些国家无法制定货币政策促进自身经济的复苏。欧元的未来取决于欧盟政策能否在单一货币政策下解决不同国家的经济挑战。

Why These European Countries Don't Use The Euro

By Shobhit Seth | Updated July 18, 2016 — 3:03 PM EDT

The formation of the European Union (EU) paved the way for a unified, multicountry financial system under a single currency—the euro. While most EU member nations agreed to adopt the euro, a few, like the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Sweden (among others), have decided to stick with their own legacy currencies. This article discusses the reasons why some EU nations have shied away from the euro and what advantages this may confer on their economies.

There are currently 28 nations in the European Union and of these, nine countries are not in the eurozone—the unified monetary system using the euro. Two of these countries, the United Kingdom and Denmark, are legally exempt from ever adopting the euro (the UK has voted to leave the EU, see Brexit). All other EU countries must enter the eurozone after meeting certain criteria. Countries, however, do have the right to put off meeting the eurozone criteria and thereby postpone their adoption of the euro.

EU nations are diverse in culture, climate, population, and economy. Nations have different financial needs and challenges to address. The common currency imposes a system of central monetary policy applied uniformly. The problem, however, is what’s good for the economy of one eurozone nation may be terrible for another. Most EU nations that have avoided the eurozone do so to maintain economic independence. Here are a few reasons why many EU nations don’t use the euro.

Independence in Drafting Monetary Policies: Since the European Central Bank (ECB) sets the economic and monetary policies for all eurozone nations, there is no independence for an individual state to craft policies tailored for its own conditions. The UK, a non-euro county, may have managed to recover from the 2007-2008 financial crisis by quickly cutting domestic interest rates in October of 2008 and initiating a quantitative easing program in March of 2009. In contrast, the European Central Bank waited until 2015 to start its quantitative easing program (creating money to buy government bonds in order to spur the economy).

Independence in Handling Country-Specific Challenges: Every economy has its own challenges. Greece, for example, has high sensitivity to interest rate changes, as most of its mortgages are on variable interest rate rather than fixed. However, being bound by European Central Bank regulations, Greece does not have independence to manage interest rates to most benefit its people and economy. Meanwhile, the UK economy is also very sensitive to interest rate changes. But as a non-eurozone country, it was able to keep interest rates low through its central bank, the Bank of England.

Independent Lender of Last Resort: A country’s economy is highly sensitive to the Treasury bond yields. Again, non-euro countries have the advantage here. They have their own independent central banks which are able to act as the lender of last resort for the country’s debt. In case of rising bond yields, these central banks start buying the bonds and in that way increase liquidity in the markets. Eurozone countries have the ECB as their central bank, but the ECB does not buy member-nation specific bonds in such situations. The result is that countries like Italy have faced major challenges due to increased bond yields.

Independence in Inflation-Controlling Measures: When inflation rises in an economy, an effective response is to increase interest rates. Non-euro countries can do this through the monetary policy of their independent regulators. Eurozone countries don’t always have that option. For example, following the economic crisis, the European Central Bank raised interest rates fearing high inflation in Germany. The move helped Germany, but other eurozone nations like Italy and Portugal suffered under the high interest rates.

Independence for Currency Devaluation: Nations can face economic challenges due to periodic cycles of high inflation, high wages, reduced exports, or reduced industrial production. Such situations can be efficiently handled by devaluing the nation’s currency, which makes exports cheaper and more competitive and encourages foreign investments. Non-euro countries can devalue their respective currencies as needed. However, eurozone cannot independently change euro valuation—it affects 19 other countries and is controlled by the European Central Bank.

The Bottom Line

Eurozone nations first thrived under the euro. The common currency brought with it the elimination of exchange rate volatility (and associated costs), easy access to a large and monetarily unified European market, and price transparency. However, the financial crisis of 2007-2008 revealed some pitfalls of the euro. Some eurozone economies suffered more than others (examples are Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal). Due to the lack of economic independence, these countries could not set monetary policy to best foster their own recoveries. The future of the euro will depend on how EU policies evolve to address the monetary challenges of individual nations under a single monetary policy.

本文翻译由兄弟财经提供

文章来源：http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/050515/why-these-european-countries-dont-use-euro.asp