December 1, 2001
Greenspan Remarks on Euro's Weakness
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
nytimes.com
ASHINGTON, Nov. 30 (Bloomberg News) — The relative weakness of the euro against the dollar reflects Europe's inflexible labor policies and worker productivity gains that lag those in the United States, the Federal Reserve Board's chairman, Alan Greenspan, said today.
Rising worker productivity has increased returns on United States assets and maintained the dollar's dominance in the world economy in recent years, Mr. Greenspan said in a speech to the Euro 50 Group, an organization of former European finance ministry officials.
The euro, a currency shared by 12 European countries, was introduced in January 1999 and goes into public circulation in January. Since the end of June 2000, the point at which the United States economy began to slow, the euro has declined 6 percent against the dollar. Since its inception, the euro has fallen 25 percent.
That is because investors sought higher returns in the United States, he said. "The attraction of investing in dollar-denominated assets depends upon relative rates of return," he said. |
