The genie is out of the bottle: Europe is again discussing the possibility of Greece leaving the euro. With it, the debate has re-emerged whether this would be helpful or not for Greece and whether there would be contagion to other euro area countries. A big question is, of course, how the Greek financial system would survive an exit with a debt restructuring; how long it will take until Greece would regain access to financial markets; and how big the benefit of a debt restructuring is given the relatively low interest load. The absence of external help would be a further factor weighing on Greece. All these factors speak clearly against an exit from the point of view of Greece but they are not discussed in this article.
