Political Economy Perspectives on the Greek Crisis

Debt, Austerity and Unemployment

Ioannis Bournakis, Christopher Tsoukis, Dimitris K. Christopoulos, Theodore Palivos, Ioannis Bournakis, Christopher Tsoukis, Dimitris K. Christopoulos, Theodore Palivos

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9783319637051
• eBook ISBN: 9783319637068
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic History
• Index: Economics

This book offers a comprehensive guide to the on-going Greek debt crisis. It identifies and explains Greece's idiosyncratic weaknesses, and highlights the existing rigidities in the EU architecture that make the recovery prospects of the Greek economy challenging.

Chapters from expert contributors highlight aspects of the performance of the Greek economy with focus on export performance, labour market conditions, political cycles and regional income disparities. The book then goes on to outline the banking system in Greece in the post-crisis era, and includes analysis that explains how the credit rating score affected Greece's borrowing capacity prior to the start of the insolvency crisis. The final part analyses and compares alternative scenarios of fiscal consolidation, seeking to identify whether there are alternatives to fiscal austerity and the impact of each one of them. This section also clarifies various misconceptions about the significant determinants of international competitiveness. Despite the focus of the book, the lessons drawn from the chapters are not limited to Greece.

This volume will be of interest to academics, practitioners and policy makers who wish to take a closer look at the Greek debt crisis and learn more about the challenges the Greek economy is currently facing.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Editors and Contributors
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Part I Introduction and PoliticalEconomy Approaches
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Eurozone Crisis: A Near-Perfect Case of Mismanagement
• 3 The Elusive Promise of Structural Reform
• 4 The Responsibility of the EU
• 5 German Macroeconomic Thought and Its Effects
• 6 Seven Years of Austerity and the Greek Dra(ch)ma: Three Economists’ Views and a Comment
• Part II Debt, Austerity and Credit Ratings
• 7 A Macroeconomic Perspective on the Greek Debt Crisis
• 8 On the Role of the Credit Rating Agencies in the Euro Zone Crisis
• 9 The Greek Great Depression: A General Equilibrium Study of its Drivers
• 10 The Limits of Austerity: The Fiscal Multiplier and the ‘Debt Laffer Curve’
• 11 Fiscal Consolidation Policies and the Underground Economy: The Case of Greece
• Part III Sectoral Views
• 12 Output and Unemployment: Estimating Okun’s Law for Greece
• 13 On the Determinants of NPLs: Lessons from Greece
• 14 Who Exports High-Quality Manufacturing Products? Some Empirical Regularities From Greek Exporting Firms
• 15 Spatial Structure and Spatial Dynamics of Regional Incomes in Greece
• 16 Greece’s Competitiveness: A Survey and Concluding Remarks
• Index