Beyond Austerity

Beyond Austerity PDF Author: Costas Meghir
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262339226
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 728

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Book Description
Prominent economists present detailed analyses of the conditions that made Greece vulnerable to economic crisis and offer policy recommendations for comprehensive and radical change. More than eight years after the global financial crisis began, the economy of Greece shows little sign of recovery, and its position in the eurozone seems tenuous. Between 2008 and 2014, incomes in Greece shrank by more than 25 percent, homes lost more than a third of their value, and the unemployment rate reached 27 percent. Most articles on Greece in the media focus on the effects of austerity, repayment of its debt, and its future in the eurozone. In Beyond Austerity: Reforming the Greek Economy, leading Greek economists from institutions both within and outside Greece, take a broader and deeper view of the Greek crisis, examining the pathologies that made Greece vulnerable to the crisis and the implications for the entire eurozone. Each chapter takes on a specific policy area, examining it in terms of Greece's economic reality and offering possible directions for policy. The topics range from macroeconomic issues to markets and their regulation to finance to the public sector. Individual chapters address the costs and benefits of participation in the eurozone, Greece's international competitiveness, taxation, pensions, the labor market, privatization, product markets, finance, education, healthcare, corruption, the justice system, and public administration. The contributors argue that Greek institutions require a deep overhaul rather than quick fixes to enable long-term growth and prosperity.

Beyond Austerity

Beyond Austerity PDF Author: Costas Meghir
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262339226
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 728

Get Book

Book Description
Prominent economists present detailed analyses of the conditions that made Greece vulnerable to economic crisis and offer policy recommendations for comprehensive and radical change. More than eight years after the global financial crisis began, the economy of Greece shows little sign of recovery, and its position in the eurozone seems tenuous. Between 2008 and 2014, incomes in Greece shrank by more than 25 percent, homes lost more than a third of their value, and the unemployment rate reached 27 percent. Most articles on Greece in the media focus on the effects of austerity, repayment of its debt, and its future in the eurozone. In Beyond Austerity: Reforming the Greek Economy, leading Greek economists from institutions both within and outside Greece, take a broader and deeper view of the Greek crisis, examining the pathologies that made Greece vulnerable to the crisis and the implications for the entire eurozone. Each chapter takes on a specific policy area, examining it in terms of Greece's economic reality and offering possible directions for policy. The topics range from macroeconomic issues to markets and their regulation to finance to the public sector. Individual chapters address the costs and benefits of participation in the eurozone, Greece's international competitiveness, taxation, pensions, the labor market, privatization, product markets, finance, education, healthcare, corruption, the justice system, and public administration. The contributors argue that Greek institutions require a deep overhaul rather than quick fixes to enable long-term growth and prosperity.

Beyond Defeat and Austerity

Beyond Defeat and Austerity PDF Author: David J Bailey
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317494563
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Much of the critical discussion of the European political economy and the Eurozone crisis has focused upon a sense that solidaristic achievements built up during the post-war period are being continuously unravelled. Whilst there are many reasons to lament the trajectory of change within Europe’s political economy, there are also important developments, trends and processes which have acted to obstruct, hinder and present alternatives to this perceived trajectory of declining social solidarity. These alternatives have tended to be obscured from view, in part as a result of the conceptual approaches adopted within the literature. Drawing from examples across the EU, this book presents an alternative narrative and explanation for the development of Europe’s political economy and crisis, emphasising the agency of what are typically considered subordinate (and passive) actors. By highlighting patterns of resistance, disobedience and disruption it makes a significant contribution to a literature that has otherwise been more concerned to understand patterns of heightened domination, exploitation, inequality and neoliberal consolidation. It will be of interest to students and scholars alike.

Economic Policy, Crisis and Innovation

Economic Policy, Crisis and Innovation PDF Author: Maria Cristina Marcuzzo
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000751244
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
This book is a Festschrift to Annamaria Simonazzi and embraces the themes that she has contributed to over the years through her insightful and inspiring works. It brings together contributions from a number of distinguished European economists, which pay tribute to her by engaging in a dialogue with her research, simultaneously reflecting on the process of growing economic disintegration in the European Union, its causes and its possible remedies. The book shows the deep interrelations between macroeconomic issues and the social sphere, and points to the need to rethink the very foundations of European economic policies as an effective antidote to growing imbalances and disintegration. In particular, the effects of austerity are assessed alongside the dimensions of inequality, gender discrimination, poverty, and unemployment, broadening the perspective also beyond the Eurozone. The authors envision a progressive society, in which investments in research and intelligent industrial policies govern the processes of technological change and drive the economy towards a more efficient and more equal model of development characterized by high productivity and high wages. While some chapters deal directly with policy issues, policy suggestions and proposals are scattered throughout the whole book. This volume will appeal to academics, economists, and policy-makers interested in understanding the policy response of European institutions to the challenges posed by both the Great Recession and subsequent developments in the European economies. The book is written in an engaging and accessible way, and the themes are broad enough to generate interest from the international public.

The Global Life of Austerity

The Global Life of Austerity PDF Author: Theodoros Rakopoulos
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1785338714
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
Austerity and structural adjustment programs are just the latest forms of neoliberal policy to have a profoundly damaging impact on the targeted populations. Yet, as the contributors to this collection argue, the recent austerity-related European crisis is not a breach of erstwhile development schemes, but a continuation of economic policies. Using historical analysis and ethnographically-grounded research, this volume shows the similarities of the European conundrum with realities outside Europe, seeing austerity in a non-Eurocentric fashion. In doing so, it offers novel insights as to how economic crises are experienced at a global level.

Work-Life Balance in Times of Recession, Austerity and Beyond

Work-Life Balance in Times of Recession, Austerity and Beyond PDF Author: Suzan Lewis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317405641
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This book reflects the enormous interest in work-life balance and current pressing concerns about the impacts of austerity more broadly. It draws on contemporary research and practitioner experiences to explore how work-life balance and related workplace and social policy fare in turbulent economic times and the implications for employees, employers and wider societies. Authors consider workplace trends, practices and employment relations and the impacts on work, care and well-being of diverse workers. A guiding theme throughout the book is a triple agenda of supporting employee work-life balance, workplace effectiveness and social justice. The final chapters present case studies of innovative processes and organizational practices for addressing the triple agenda, note the important role of social policy context and discuss the challenge of extending debates on work-life balance to include a social justice dimension. This book will be of interest to academics and postgraduate students of organisational psychology, sociology, human resource management, management and business studies, law and social policy, as well as employers, managers, HR managers, trade unions, and policy makers.

For Health Autonomy

For Health Autonomy PDF Author: CareNotes Collective
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781942173359
Category : Medical care
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Here, the treatment of pathologies'such as cancers or viruses'is considered as important as dismantling the causes of pathologies, including the social problems of debt, homelessness, police violence, and isolation. We must grasp how the de-individualization of care, what we might refer to as the communization of care, is central to fighting state and capital's racialized and gendered forms of abandonment." For Health Autonomy: Horizons of Care Beyond Austerity'Reflections from Greece explores the landscape of care spaces coordinated by autonomous collectives in Greece, including clinics, social spaces for health, social kitchens, and safe spaces liberated from the state and capital. The significance of autonomous spaces is intensified in the very moment the state, capital, and their complicit institutions attempt to penetrate their power via austerity and state violence. In tandem with the broader anticapitalist movement, these spaces have ruptured the legitimacy of the state and capital, and reclaimed care beyond the limits of the biomedical, nonprofit, and capitalist frameworks. The experience of Greek autonomous care spaces encapsulates care within, as well as beyond, the biomedical; where addressing pathologies, such as cancers or colds, are as important as dismantling the causes of the pathology, including debt, homelessness, police violence, and social isolation. The collected essays grasp how emotional and physical distress is preventable'where ensuring access to antibiotics, vaccines, or herbal remedies is as relevant as liberating unused space for housing or de-policing a neighborhood. The subjects of this collection include a network of users of psychosocial services, defending their right to autonomy within mental healthcare systems; a healthcare center organized and maintained by an anarchist collective; a worker's clinic founded by a coalition of factory workers and healthcare solidarity activists; among others. The Greek contribution to autonomous care work emancipates labor, space, and resources towards a form of life that sustains the bodies and well-being of the collectives directly involved in this process, and the broader network of autonomous communities that rely on such care spaces to reproduce other modes of noncapitalist life. Efforts to defend and expand the very elements necessary for the survival of our bodies and ecology are in tandem with efforts to rupture from hierarchies, profits, and institutionalized singularities. For Health Autonomy is a powerful collection of first-hand accounts of concrete alternatives that are replacing our need for police and prisons based on the collective power of communities and care workers. These reflections have merged from within and beyond healthcare institutions.

Beyond Austerity

Beyond Austerity PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Europe
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Beyond Debt

Beyond Debt PDF Author: Nikos Tsafos
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781479140763
Category : Financial crises
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
How did Greece, with less than 3% of the population of the European Union, become the epicenter of Europe's "existential crisis?" Why did Greece opt for an obligation-laden bailout rather than default or leave the Eurozone, as many said it should? Could it have avoided the disappointments that followed, including needing a second bailout, holding repeat elections, and swearing in its fourth prime minister in a year? The conventional narrative answered these questions by viewing the Greek crisis as the result of a "flawed currency union." Many economists, moreover, thought Greece was foolish to seek a bailout rather than renege on its debts or leave the Eurozone. And as the crisis deepened, economists again blamed the international community for pushing "austerity" onto Greece. Beyond Debt offers a different account of this crisis. It sees it, first and foremost, as a Greek crisis, best understood through the lens of Greek history, politics and economics. The crisis was triggered by global events, but it was not caused by them. As the book shows, Greece's chosen path-a bailout-made infinitely more sense than either a default or the abandonment of the common currency that many economists called for. And while others see "austerity" as the problem for Greece's woes after the bailout, Beyond Debt blames instead an indecisive government that could not see reform through to the end.

Austerity

Austerity PDF Author: Mark Blyth
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199389446
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Selected as a Financial Times Best Book of 2013 Governments today in both Europe and the United States have succeeded in casting government spending as reckless wastefulness that has made the economy worse. In contrast, they have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts--austerity--to solve the financial crisis. We are told that we have all lived beyond our means and now need to tighten our belts. This view conveniently forgets where all that debt came from. Not from an orgy of government spending, but as the direct result of bailing out, recapitalizing, and adding liquidity to the broken banking system. Through these actions private debt was rechristened as government debt while those responsible for generating it walked away scot free, placing the blame on the state, and the burden on the taxpayer. That burden now takes the form of a global turn to austerity, the policy of reducing domestic wages and prices to restore competitiveness and balance the budget. The problem, according to political economist Mark Blyth, is that austerity is a very dangerous idea. First of all, it doesn't work. As the past four years and countless historical examples from the last 100 years show, while it makes sense for any one state to try and cut its way to growth, it simply cannot work when all states try it simultaneously: all we do is shrink the economy. In the worst case, austerity policies worsened the Great Depression and created the conditions for seizures of power by the forces responsible for the Second World War: the Nazis and the Japanese military establishment. As Blyth amply demonstrates, the arguments for austerity are tenuous and the evidence thin. Rather than expanding growth and opportunity, the repeated revival of this dead economic idea has almost always led to low growth along with increases in wealth and income inequality. Austerity demolishes the conventional wisdom, marshaling an army of facts to demand that we austerity for what it is, and what it costs us.

Austerity

Austerity PDF Author: Alberto Alesina
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691208638
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
A revealing look at austerity measures that succeed—and those that don't Fiscal austerity is hugely controversial. Opponents argue that it can trigger downward growth spirals and become self-defeating. Supporters argue that budget deficits have to be tackled aggressively at all times and at all costs. Bringing needed clarity to one of today's most challenging economic issues, three leading policy experts cut through the political noise to demonstrate that there is not one type of austerity but many. Austerity assesses the relative effectiveness of tax increases and spending cuts at reducing debt, shows that austerity is not necessarily the kiss of death for political careers as is often believed, and charts a sensible approach based on data analysis rather than ideology.