The Crisis and the Welfare State in Greece: A Complex Relationship

  • Manos Matsaganis
Chapter
Part of the Identities and Modernities in Europe book series (IME)

Abstract

As every European who occasionally switches on their TV set must be aware, Greece is in the throes of a dramatic crisis. This started off in 2009 as a fiscal crisis, soon turned into a sovereign debt crisis, and finally mutated into a full-blown recession, unprecedented in depth and duration. By late 2012, the Greek economy had already been in recession for four consecutive years, and showed few signs of recovery. The latest official figures (Bank of Greece 2012) estimated the size of (negative) growth in 2012 at just over 6 per cent, and bleakly forecast a further −4.0 to −4.5 per cent in 2013. Based upon that forecast, in 2013 GDP will have contracted by 23 per cent or more in real terms relative to 2008. So deep and drawn out a recession simply has no precedent in the peacetime economic history of most advanced economies.

Keywords

Welfare State Euro Area Sovereign Debt Crisis Pension Income Austerity Policy 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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© Manos Matsaganis 2013

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  • Manos Matsaganis

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