Disintegration or integration, both painful for eurozone: experts (2)

Chief global economist of Citigroup Willem Buiter said Monday in a report, "the euro area -- and most of the rest of the EU -- face two or three more years of recession and tepid cyclical recovery, even if EU policy makers enact the right measures as fast as their glacial decision-making process allows."

"Excessive leverage" is the cause of the balance sheet recession, Buiter said in the report entitled "Europe: The light at the end of the tunnel is still two to three years away."

The growth of the euro zone would not return until deleveraging is completed, Buiter said. "The main instruments of deleveraging will be debt mutualization and debt restructuring," he said.

But Buiter also said, "unfortunately, we cannot be sure that even when the deleveraging process is complete and domestic demand expands again, growth will be more than that of a cyclical recovery."

It is noteworthy the U.S. economy is gradually picking up from the global financial crisis since last year, while Europe showed little sign of improvement.

Hoefert said a lack of "labor mobility" and "common institution" makes Europe a different story from the United States.

Hoefert drew an interesting analogy between the United States and eurozone countries. He said the difference in GDP per capita between Massachusetts and Louisiana is roughly equal to the one between Germany and Greece, but people never heard American people saying Louisiana should leave the "dollar zone" or Massachusetts wants to leave the "dollar zone."