An Exploration of the Greek Shadow Economy: Can Its Transfer into the Official Economy Provide Economic Relief Amid the Crisis?

We explore the determinants of the Greek shadow economy, its interaction with the official economy, and its relationship with corruption. In doing so, we undertake — for the first time — an interdisciplinary review of economic and political studies on the size and determinants of the shadow economy, tax evasion, undeclared work and, moreover, of their relation with corruption in Greece in order to reveal the extent and complexity of these phenomena. We estimate the size and determinants of the shadow economy via a multiple-indicators-multiple-causes (MIMIC) approach. Our findings indicate that the important determinants are factors related to macroeconomic conditions, such as unemployment and GDP growth, and institutional factors, such as tax morale and the rule of law. We also indicate that the shadow economy and corruption are complementary and that the official and the shadow economy substitute each other over the business cycle. An adoption of policy based on these findings would lead to a successful transfer of part of the shadow economy to the official economy, would boost government revenue, and would eventually lead the Greek economy out of the depression that emerged as a result of the sovereign debt crisis.     

The ‘Value’ of Europe: The Political Economy of Culture in the European Community

During the 1970s and 1980s the “cultural sector” became one of the primary motors for wealth creation in the European Community. At the European and national scales, a group of actors helped transform Europe's vast array of practices and services (tourism, heritage, books, audio-visual products, etc.) into “cultural industries” and pushed the EC to develop a common cultural policy to support these industries. Documenting these changes at the European scale, I argue that the perceived impact of cultural policy for particular national economic competitiveness was also significant. Italian MEPs and members of Italy's national government were especially important, as they fought to protect the country's historical heritage and promote tourism. France pushed the strongest and I show how that country's efforts were primarily intended to protect its audio-visual and publishing industries from the EC internal market's liberalisation policies, which were vocally supported by Britain because they would have served that county's national economic interests.     

The Political Economy of Policy Reform in the Philippines: 1992–1998

Accurately measuring Turkey's informal sector is important for policymaking. We utilize household income‐expenditure surveys to examine this sector's income underreporting. The Pissarides‐Weber approach hypothesizes that data would reflect such underreporting as “excess food consumption”. Our results suggest informal sector members spend more than their formal sector counterparts with comparable reported income levels. Using this information, we estimate the average size of the true informal sector to be about 1.25 times the official estimate. The informal sector accounts for around 83% of officially reported disposable income. Therefore, true Turkish disposable income is (25%)?(83%), roughly 21% larger than the officially estimated magnitude.     

Why Crisis Continue?——The Endogenous Reason of Financial Crisis and Evolution to the Debt Crisis and the Enlightenment

当前欧债危机越演越烈,需要重新思考金融危机爆发并且演化为主权债务危机的内生性根源.此次金融危机中,资本主义社会的基本矛盾是危机发生的制度性根源.这一矛盾外化为“相对过剩”.经济机制层面,新自由主义影响下的自由市场经济体制放大了市场经济固有的缺陷,为危机的爆发积累了机制性原因.微观市场层面,缺乏金融监管、不当的房地产和货币政策则是诱发危机的直接原因.高赤字和高负债的背景下,一些国内经济和社会矛盾突出的国家发生主权债务危机是金融危机深化的必然结果.处理好自由市场经济和规制市场经济、金融创新和金融监管、实体经济和虚拟经济的关系以及地方债务问题是此次金融和债务危机给我国的最大启示.     

The Tunisian Mise à Niveau Programme and the Political Economy of Reform

This article explores the homogenising pressures of globalisation and institutional change in the state-led model of capitalism, within the purview of the ‘varieties of capitalism’ literature. In light of the observation that the national political economies which are the exemplars of the state-led model have undergone a more fundamental change towards the liberal market model than the other non-liberal variant (namely, the coordinated market model), the article asks what systemic (structural-institutional) factors make the state-led model less resilient in the face of pressures for change. Focusing on corporate governance in South Korea as an illustrative case study, the article argues that the absence of the kind of institutional complementarity (that is, mutually reinforcing link) between the key capitalist sub-systems found in the coordinated market model can help to explain the profound, and even path-shifting, change in the state-led model.     

Profitability Capital Accumulation and Crisis in the Greek Economy 1958–2009: a Marxist Analysis

Abstract

This study examines the behavior of the main Marxian variables in the postwar Greek economy. The different phases of the capital accumulation process are distinguished and analyzed according to the movement of the rate of profit. The ‘golden age’ of the 1958–74 period of high profitability and strong growth was followed by the stagflation crisis of the 1970s and early 1980s. After 1985, and especially after 1991, the ‘neoliberal solution’ to the crisis resulted in a modest recovery of profitability, capital accumulation and output growth based exclusively on the huge increase in the rate of exploitation for labor. When the stimulus to aggregate demand provided from debt driven personal consumption and state deficit spending was removed, the underlying structural crisis in the real economy manifested itself fully in 2009 and after.     

The Political Economy of Monetary Institutions in Brazil: The Limits of the Inflation-targeting Strategy, 1999–2005

Abstract

This paper suggests that the time-inconsistency approach is inadequate to analyze the political economy of monetary policy in Brazil. The paper develops an alternative theory that emphasizes distributive conflict, and argues that building credibility with a fixed exchange rate and through inflation-targeting was not central for stabilization. A contested-terrain analysis of the Brazilian case suggests that the current monetary regime benefits financial or rentier interests while the manufacturing sector and workers bear the costs of this policy.     

Contributions of the Galbraith “Technostructure” to the Growing Crisis of the U.S. Economy

This paper lays the methodological foundations of an analytical framework that may help shed some new light on the issue of territorial inequalities in the digital economy. It opposes the recent tendency to build up an evolutionary economic geography as an alternative not only to the so-called "New Economic Geography" (namely "geographical mainstream economics") but also to the institutional economic geography. The paper advocates the development of an evolutionary and institutional approach in economic geography, which would be meso-focused. Finally, it presents some insights that highlight the heuristic potential of this approach in reappraising the territorial features of the digital economy.     

PIGS or Lambs? The European Sovereign Debt Crisis and the Role of Rating Agencies

This paper asks whether rating agencies played a passive role or were an active driving force during Europe??s sovereign debt crisis. We address this by estimating relationships between sovereign debt ratings and macroeconomic and structural variables. We then use these equations to decompose actual ratings into systematic and arbitrary components that are not explained by previously observed procedures of rating agencies. Finally, we check whether systematic, as well as arbitrary, parts of credit ratings affect credit spreads. We find that both do affect credit spreads, which opens the possibility that arbitrary rating downgrades trigger processes of self-fulfilling prophecies that may drive even relatively healthy countries towards default.     

Trade Politics： A Brief Survey of International Political Economy

International political economy has already been shown to be powerful to explain the global trade growth. In this paper we offer a brief survey of international political economy of trade policy. In addition to this, we also try to address three questions： （1） How does electoral competition affect trade policy？ Suppose two parties compete for the power over trade policy, would the two parties choose the same tariff？. （2） We observe that the US tariffs decline over time, so do the declining U.S. tariffs lead to the fall of the Democratic vote share in the election？ （3） What is the relationship between trade globalization and political liberalization？ Put it another way, how does trade affect democracy？ And conversely, how does democracy affect trade？     

Return of the State? The G20, the Financial Crisis and Power in the World Economy

The Group of Twenty and the new world order it is meant to signify have prompted a wave of triumphalism around the world from those who, like French President Nicolas Sarkozy, bemoan the influences of ‘Anglo-Saxon capitalism’ and from neo-Marxists, who view the economic crisis as a harbinger of the resurgence of states over markets. A little over a decade ago, however, the late doyenne of international political economists, Susan Strange, wrote eloquently about the reasons why the state was in retreat, its structural power draining away in favour of markets. Have the intervening dozen years, with their recurrent crises in markets and corporate governance, demonstrated the need for a return of the state? This analysis of the G20 London communiqué, using criteria that Strange advanced, suggests that far from asserting a return of the state, the G20 signifies its persistent weakness and concludes that the G20 leaders, at least, sense a more complex network of power relationships, and that structural power rests in the network.     

The Political Economy of Mobility Partnerships – Structural Power in the EU's External Migration Policy

The research on European Union (EU) external relations and the EU's own official discourse frequently portray the EU as a soft power that provides its neighbourhood with good governance principles. The European Mobility Partnerships (EU MPs) can be considered the most recent manifestation of this rhetoric. Studies on EU MPs reflect a narrow understanding of power. This paper aims to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the power dimension inherent in the EU's external relations. It develops a neogramscian theoretical framework to challenge the rhetoric of the EU as a soft power and normative hegemon. Drawing on semi-structured expert interviews and textual analysis of documents, it seeks to reveal whether and in what ways socio-economic power dynamics shape the EU MPs. This article argues that while, at the beginning, the design of the EU MPs as a policy tool has been very much influenced by neoliberal ideas such as the market-oriented liberalisation of mobility and the flexibilisation of labour, implementation is marked by the neo-mercantilist approach of restricting immigration and maximising the efficiency of readmission. Applying a critical political economy concept of power is helpful in understanding how market forces influence EU external migration policy, transcending a narrow understanding of power.     

Party Politics and the Political Economy of Ghana’s Oil

Ghana’s status as a new oil producer raises questions about the developmental effects of resources, and the role of political institutions in these processes. The conundrum this paper addresses is the rather limited impact of oil exploitation in Ghana despite the country’s strong democratic record and internationally acclaimed oil governance legislation. The reasons for this lie in the nature of elite-based political coalitions and we root our analysis of Ghana’s hydrocarbons in the political settlements literature, which moves us beyond the ‘good governance’ approaches so often linked to ‘resource curse’ thinking. We also move beyond the instrumentalism of political settlements theory to examine the role political ideas play in shaping resource governance. We argue that inter-coalitional rivalry has generally undermined the benefits of Ghana’s oil but that a crude interests-based interpretation is insufficient to explain differences between these coalitions.     

Research on the Roles of Commercial Banks and IMF in the Latin American Debt Crisis

In the 1980s Latin American countries ran into debt crisis. Heavy debt has been the shade that cannot be waved all the time. Commercial banks＇ expansionist thrnst into Latin America made these countries go deeply into the debt crisis. International Monetary Fund played an indispensable role in resolving the crisis. It might temporarily steady the financial situation of an area, but it was difficult to stem the enormous economical loopholes of these countries and couldn＇t solve the basic problems of economy, politics and society. It was unable to make the countries pass the crisis substantially.     

The Political Cause of the Movement of RMB Exchange Rate：A Research Based on the Spillover Effects of US Political Cycle

Movement of the renminbi (RMB) exchange rate is not only affected by economic factors, but also by political factors home and aboard. This paper analyzes the transmission mechanism of political cycles on the RMB exchange rate first, and then sets up a “political cycle spillover effect model” followed by an empirical analysis. We find that: (1) the US political cycle has a direct effect on the RMB exchange rate in the short run, which is mainly transmitted by capital flows and China’s exchange rate policy control; (2) the RMB exchange rate changes periodically in accordance with the US presidential election and midterm election cycle, with the appreciation ratio significantly lower in the first year of the election cycle, while significantly higher in the year after the midterm election; (3) The effect of the political cycle will not be affected by which party holds power, though it will be affected if the president and parliament are ruled by the same party. This paper not only extends the research of the influencing factors of the RMB exchange rate to the political field, but also sets up a use theoretical model to analyze the impact of political issues on the RMB exchange rate, providing a new perspective to fully understand the external environment of RMB exchange rate reform.