January 06, 2015
A NYT article on the recent drop in the value of the euro against the dollar carried the bizarre headline, “falling euro fans fears of a recession.” The headline is strange, because the drop in the euro will not cause a recession. In fact, it will help the economy by boosting net exports from the euro zone, as the article itself states.
Several other points in the article are also seriously confused. It asserts:
“There is also the fact that eurozone countries tend to be net importers of oil and natural gas — which is usually priced in dollars — meaning that their weak currency may not buy as much fuel in the future.”
The fact that oil is typically priced in dollars really has nothing to do with the time of day. The price of oil has fallen by roughly 50 percent over the last year measured in dollars. The euro has fallen by a bit more than 10 percent, which means that oil has fallen by roughly 45 percent measured in euros.
The fact that the euro zone produces relatively little oil is a huge benefit in this story relative to the United States. While consumers in both the U.S. and the euro zone will be benefited by the plunge in oil prices, the United States has areas of the country like Texas, North Dakota, and Alaska, that are heavily dependent on oil production. These regions will be badly hurt by the drop in oil prices.
The article also notes that Europe may be hurt by a slowdown in growth elsewhere in the world, referring to the “region’s dependence on trade.” Actually the euro zone as a whole doesn’t depend much more on trade with the rest of the world than the United States. The vast majority of trade of euro zone countries is with other euro zone countries, therefore a slowdown in growth elsewhere in the world will not do more harm to the euro zone than the United States.
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