Roukanas, S. (2015). The Political Economy of the Greek Crisis: The Need to Design a State Growth Strategy. In PEDiS Scientific Conference Titled “Greece and the European Union at the Crossroads of Crucial Developments”: Policies, Strategic Choices, and Prospects (pp. 265-282). Nomiki Vivliothiki. (In Greek)

has been cited by the following article:

• TITLE: Greek Political Economy in a Period of Economic Crisis: The Need for a National Growth Strategy Plan

  AUTHORS: Pantelis Sklias, Spyros A. Roukanas, Georgios Galatsidas

  KEYWORDS: International Political Economy, Public Debt Crisis, Public Deficit and Debt, Growth Model, Greek Economy

  JOURNAL NAME: Theoretical Economics Letters, Vol.12 No.2, March 16, 2022

  ABSTRACT: In this paper, we will approach the origins of the Greek public debt crisis under the prism of the Greek Economy’s fiscal position over time; the evolution of budget deficits; as well as the (distorted) growth model that prevailed in the country during the past few decades. We argue that the public debt crisis was to a great extent the result of accumulated budget deficits and, at the same time, the predominance of a non-sustainable growth model, which has been parasitically thriving off the state. This sort of distorted government intervention in the economy used borrowed resources to create a wasteful state, which sustained high aggregate demand and high private consumption and, by extension, fuelled non-sustainable growth. Our argument is that the growth achieved by the Greek economy was not the outcome of competitive, innovative, and outward-oriented entrepreneurship, albeit was to a great extent the result of high private consumption, as well as investment in non-tradeable goods. As a result, this non-sustainable growth failed to create the conditions for the sustainable management of Greece’s ballooning deficits and debt.