Abstract:

A series of crisis and emergency interest rate cuts has brought global interest rates towards zero and government debt to historical records. The paper discusses the exit options from unconventional monetary policies and unsustainable government debt. First, the paper sheds light on the probability of a coordinated monetary policy exit between the US and the euro area. Second, it discusses the options for a coordination of the supranational monetary policy with national fiscal policies in the European Monetary Union. Third, it analyses the fiscal activities of the European Central Bank in the context of sterilized outright government bond purchases. The paper concludes that – due to the complexity of the coordination task – the coordination of the non-exit is more likely than the coordination of the exit.