accept that there are always trade - offs, there are no free lunches, that for every plus there is a minus. we want everything at the same time, sometimes even mutually inconsistent things. but that is another matter. there is one area, however, where the czech population has been very conservative over a very long period of time, and that is the area of euro adoption. in the eurobarometer – a poll you all know – the czech republic remains the country where by far the largest share of the population has a negative view towards adopting the euro out of all the non - eurozone countries. roughly two thirds of czechs are against the euro. this is a higher figure than in sweden, which rejected the euro in a referendum in 2003. well, public opinion is not as anti - euro as in the uk, where at some point the euro was only “ slightly more popular than ebola ”, as i read in one british newspaper. but still, being for the euro is simply a total political non seller. if i were to summarise the arguments against joining, be it on the side of the general public or professionals, they would be roughly threefold : a. the first one is sentimental rather than economic. we have been living with our czech koruna, or crown, for quite some time and our country has a long history of monetary stability and stabilisation. by the way, we have had the same name for our currency ever since 1892, from the times of the austro - hungarian monarchy ( the crown is a monarchist name – what a paradox in our republic ) and there has never been any reason to rename it. the old adage says : if it ain ’ t broke, why fix it? if you have low and stable inflation on your own, you don ’ t need any credibility for your currency from abroad. b. the second argument is more economic. money matters. and monetary stabilisation matters. if you have shocks in the economy, something has to move to offset the shock. something has to be flexible. it is easier to accommodate shocks through flexible interest rates or a flexible exchange rate than through wages, unemployment or budget expenditure. we discussed yesterday how hard it can be if you don ’ t have monetary policy to adjust to shocks. this is a classical argument of monetary economics for the active role of elastic money when you don ’ t have flexible prices or wages. simple as that. and as we can see, the

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