debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
Five years after the international financial crisis hit Spain, and less than two years after the Spanish economy started experiencing a weak recovery, the country has fallen back into recession. Negative economic growth rates of over 0.4% in the first half of 2012 have been accompanied by a worsening labor market situation, with almost 25% [...]
At year end we all assess the past and guess the future. We compare what we expected and what happened. We develop new expectations for the new year. In economic affairs this is particularly important, as expectations on growth are crucial for firms’ investment decisions, for government policies and for people’s chances to work. This [...]
“Why did no one see the crisis coming?” Queen Elizabeth II asked economists during a visit to the London School of Economics at the end of 2008. Four years later, the repeated failure of economic forecasters to predict the depth and duration of the slump would have elicited a similar question from the queen: Why [...]
Undoubtedly, the main onus of responsibility for the current global crisis is on the financial system (although the crisis erupted against the background of global economic imbalances and of income distribution within countries becoming increasingly more unequal), and not on a lack of fiscal discipline. Nevertheless, since the end of the most acute phase of [...]
Michael Jacobs argues that green growth speaks directly to the economic priority of governments. Environmental policies, as well as tackling environmental costs, can address other market failures which inhibit growth, help boost aggregate demand, stimulate employment, and drive innovation. Over the past four years the concept of ‘green growth’ has burst onto the international policy scene. [...]
Watch Jean Lambert, MEP for the UK Green Party, discuss GDP as a measures of well-being. This talk was recorded at the conference ‘From (un)economic growth to future well-being’ organised by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) and the European Public Service Union (EPSU) in Brussels on 15th and 16th October 2012. This video is [...]
Watch Florence Jany-Catrice of the University of Lille 1 discuss measures of well-being. This talk was recorded at the conference ‘From (un)economic growth to future well-being’ organised by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) and the European Public Service Union (EPSU) in Brussels on 15th and 16th October 2012. This video is part of the [...]
The source of the Italian economic crisis is, needless to say, far more global than Italian. An economy so vastly dependent on industrial exports could not possibly remain unaffected by the depressive consequences of the crisis and, even more so, by the stifling results of the austerity measures imposed on all over the EU, including [...]
Why do neoclassical economists want the budget to be balanced and people to save more? Because they believe that “saving finances investment”. They believe that in order to finance investment, somebody has to have saved beforehand. This might sound intuitive, but it is one of the biggest (and unfortunately oldest) fallacies in economics. Saving never [...]
Throughout the course of history, there were several so call labour market models in western societies: the United States, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and more recently Germany and, maybe, Austria. In terms of a well functioning labour market, most of them were successful for a certain period in history but failed in others. Look at [...]
European Leaders opt for unification, citizens do not Three years into the crisis European leaders seem to be convinced of the necessity of European unification. They consider that Europe’s dissolution would be a disaster. According to analysts of Prognos, a European think tank, the extreme scenario of an exit from the Euro of 4 countries [...]
What follows might seem unconventional for the topic of how to restore growth in an economy that is considered developed and is part of the eurozone. Greece is going through unprecedented times; the Greek people are experiencing the most debilitating crisis in the country’s modern history, a severe and sharp reduction in standards of living. [...]
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