In recent years the countries of southern Europe have undergone, with varying intensity, a serious and prolonged economic crisis. Most have had to implement comprehensive economic adjustment programmes, including a wide range of structural reforms. Economic Crisis and Structural Reforms in Southern Europe examines these reforms, drawing policy lessons from their successes and failures.
This book employs two basic strands of analysis: issues of policy design, and political economy considerations. It considers the choice of timing and sequencing of reforms, the choice of the appropriate policy instruments, the pressure of interest groups and the political calculations involved in reforms. Featuring chapters in which contributors explore both national cases of specific structural reforms, and a comparative approach in order to evaluate similar reforms across countries, this important and topical work explores ongoing issues within the economy.
Focusing on the challenges of designing and implementing structural reforms under conditions of crisis, this book will be of interest to policy makers and researchers from national and international organizations as well as academics and members of research institutes interested in the economics and politics of the Eurozone crisis.
List of contributors, List of figures, List of tables, Preface and Acknowledgements, Chapter 1: Introduction Katsikas, Dimitris and Manasse, Paolo Southern Europe in crisis, Chapter 2: Designing Structural Reforms in Times of Crisis: Lessons from the Past Katsikas, Dimitris, Chapter 3. The Political Conditions for Economic Reform in Europes South Terzi, Alessio. Chapter 4. The Persistence-Resilience Trade-off in Unemployment: The Role of Labor and Product Market Institutions Aksoy, Tolga and Manasse, Paolo, Chapter 5: Reforms and External Balances in Southern Europe and Ireland Catão, Luís A. V., Chapter 6: Labour Market Reform in Portugal under the Adjustment Programme: Lessons for Policy Design Turrini, Alessandro, Chapter 7: Some Unpleasant Labour Arithmetics: A Tale of the Spanish 2012 Labour Market Reform, Cuerpo, Carlos, Geli, Federico and Herrero, Carlos, Chapter 8: Balancing Adjustment Policies and Structural reforms in Greece: The Case of Product Markets, Petralias, Athanassios, Anastasatou, Marianthi and Katsikas, Dimitris, Chapter 9: The Political Economy of Cyprus Financial Sector Reform Clerides, Sofronis, Chapter 10: Non-Performing Loans in the European Periphery: The Political Economy of Reform, Panagiotarea, Eleni, Chapter 11: The Restructuring of Spains Banking System: A Political Economy Approach, Otero-Iglesias, Miguel and Steinberg, Federico, Chapter 12: Conclusions Manasse, Paolo and Katsikas, Dimitris
