Greece will suffer less if it leaves euro now

The shakedown [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]

The mood on the ground in Athens has shifted palpably over the past few months. Everyone has firsthand stories of sorrow and bitterness to tell, as austerity measures bite. They speak of retired parents on rapidly shrinking pensions struggling to meet higher taxes and prices, or of young siblings with multiple masters degrees forced to work in call centers or cafes.

Despite this clear sense of despair and anger, the vast majority of Greek citizens and politicians continue to think that the alternative to austerity - default and a euro-area exit - would be far worse. But this will - and should - change because leaving the euro is the lesser evil for Greece.

Returning to the drachma would be ignominious, an admission of political failure. But, contrary to popular belief, it need not destroy the country and may be the only realistic way of spurring the kinds of structural reforms that are essential if Greece is to make a lasting recovery.

Greece faces a stark choice about how to return to growth. It can continue along its current path of endless austerity aimed at engineering an internal devaluation. For a country that cannot control its exchange rates, this is the only way to regain competitiveness relative to other countries.

Nominal devaluation

Exiting the euro area is not an easy option. It would spark a sovereign default, a run on banks, bank defaults and capital controls. But increasingly, these things look like they may happen in Greece whether the country sticks with the euro or not. If all the worst effects of abandoning the euro are likely to happen regardless, then Greece may as well benefit from a nominal devaluation.

Many Greeks argue that their country does not have any export industries that could gain from such a nominal currency devaluation. The shipping industry books almost all of its profits offshore, so making shipping cheaper would hardly benefit the Greek economy.

Still, Greece has a vibrant tourism industry that contributes about 18 percent of gross domestic product and has lost business to cheaper holiday destinations in Turkey and North Africa. Agriculture, manufacturing and pharmaceuticals are also sizeable Greek export industries.

All of these sectors - and therefore GDP growth generally - would benefit if relative prices on Greece's products and services were to plummet.

In addition, there's no reason to believe Greece would be left without a financial lifeline if it exited the euro area. Its departure would be handled like a divorce, in which Greece and the so-called troika - the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund - acknowledge that their relationship no longer works. The troika would provide some bridge financing to ease the turmoil that an exit would inevitably entail for Greece.

This financing would continue to be conditional on the same structural reforms that the three institutions are currently demanding. After a default and euro-area exit, however, the Greek government would have much greater incentives to deliver.

Currently, the cost of failure to reform is criticism from the troika and demands for more austerity. After a default and euro exit, failure to reform would probably mean a loss of bridge financing at a time when it was urgently needed to cushion a financial shock. That could trigger dire consequences. Greece could succumb to severe social unrest. The threat of such a prospect might finally provide the impetus for a Greek government to get down to doing the hard work of structural reform, not because outsiders are telling them to, but because Greeks themselves see the options and commit to reforms.