The Maastricht Inflation Criterion

The Maastricht inflation criterion, designed in the early 1990s to bring "high-inflation" EU countries in line with "low-inflation" countries prior to the introduction of the euro, poses challenges for both new EU member countries and the European Central Bank. While the criterion has positively influenced the public stance toward low inflation, it has biased the choice of the disinflation strategy toward short-run, fiat measures-rather than adopting structural reforms with longer-term benefits-with unpleasant consequences for the efficiency of the eurozone transmission mechanism. The criterion is also unnecessarily tight for new member countries as it mainly reflects cyclical developments.

According to the Maastricht Treaty, a country seeking to join the European Monetary Union cannot have an inflation rate in excess of 1.5 per cent plus the average inflation rates in the three 'best performing' EU countries. This inflation reference value is a non-increasing function of the number of EU members. A counterfactual analysis of historical data shows that the effect of enlarging the EU from 15 to 27 countries was sizeable in 2002-04 and again from 2007. Monte Carlo simulations suggest that the enlargement of the EU from 15 to 27 members reduces the inflation reference value by 0.15-0.2 percentage points on average, but there is a considerable probability of a larger reduction at any given moment of time. The treatment of countries with negative inflation rates in the calculation of the reference value has a major impact on the results.

The Maastricht inflation criterion, designed in the early 1990s to bring high-inflation EU countries in line with low-inflation countries prior to the introduction of the euro, poses challenges for both new EU member countries and the European Central Bank. While the criterion has positively influenced the public stance toward low inflation, it has biased the choice of the disinflation strategy toward short-run, fiat measures - rather than adopting structural reforms with longer-term benefits - with unpleasant consequences for the efficiency of the eurozone transmission mechanism. The criterion is also unnecessarily tight for new member countries as it mainly reflects cyclical developments.

We model an accession country facing a Maastricht-type inflation criterion that specifies an inflation ceiling. In addition to deciding whether or not to satisfy this criterion, the country must decide how much costly economic reform to undertake. If the country puts enough weight on the future that it can credibly meet the inflation criterion no matter what the ceiling is, then the inflation criterion benefits the country but lowers reform. If the country puts less weight on the future, then a criterion with a properly chosen inflation ceiling can increase reform. We derive the inflation ceilings that maximize the country's welfare and its reform.