Public support for the euro, 1990 to 2012: Does the crisis matter?

This paper analyses the evolution of public support for the single European currency, the euro, from 1990 to 2012, focusing on the most recent period of the financial and sovereign debt crisis. Exploring a large database of more than half a million observations covering the 12 original euro area member countries, we find that the ongoing crisis has only marginally reduced citizens’ support for the euro. The econometric results at the aggregated level indicate that whereas inflation is significantly negatively associated with euro support, an insignificant relationship is established for unemployment. At the individual level, both objective and perceived measures of inflation are negatively related to support for the euro.