In Europe, it is quite common for public opinions and national politicians to blame economic insecurity and rising inequality on deeper regional integration within the European Union (EU), and especially on the euro. There is, however, no empirical research that clearly identifies the euro as the cause of the recent increase in income inequality. Using the synthetic counterfactual methodology developed by Abadie and Gardeazabal (2003), I estimate what would have happened to inequality in both gross and net income within euro-area countries, had these countries not switched to the single currency. In most countries (especially peripheral countries), without the euro, gross-income inequality would have been lower, while net-income inequality would have been higher. These results imply that, while deeper economic integration might have exacerbated gross income inequality, lower interest rates allowed countries to counteract these disparities with their social welfare programmes.

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区域一体化和收入不平等：欧洲货币联盟的综合反事实分析

在欧洲，舆论和国家政治家普遍将经济不安全和不平等现象归咎于欧盟内部的更深区域一体化，特别是欧元。但是，没有任何经验研究能清楚地将欧元确定为近期收入不平等加剧的原因。使用由...开发的综合反事实方法Abadie和Gardeazabal（2003）估计，如果这些国家不转换为单一货币，那么欧元区国家的总收入和净收入不平等将发生什么情况。在大多数国家（尤其是外围国家）中，如果没有欧元，则总收入不平等将降低，而净收入不平等将升高。这些结果表明，尽管更深层次的经济一体化可能加剧了总收入不平等，但较低的利率使各国能够通过其社会福利计划来弥补这些差距。