Cuadrado-Roura, Juan R., Martin, Ron, Rodrígez-Pose, Andrés, (2016), “The economic crisis in Europe: urban and regional consequences”, Oxford Journals, March
Beginning in 2007–2008, the European economy experienced the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. The proximate cause was the financial and banking crisis that originated in the overleveraged banks and mortgage institutions in the United States, and which quickly spread through the global financial system to infect much of Europe. This set off a major credit crunch which in its turn triggered a major contraction in economic growth, from which many European countries have struggled to recover. Yet it has been a crisis that has not afflicted all parts of Europe to the same degree, but rather has exposed major disparities in economic weakness, recovery and resilience both between different countries and between different regions within countries. These disparities themselves have posed an historic challenge to the European project, to the stability and viability of the European Union, and especially the Eurozone. For, to succeed, a true monetary union requires that economic shocks do not have highly disparate impacts across the constituent countries or regions of which it composed (see Fingleton et al., 2015; Martin, 2001); or, in the event of such disparate responses occurring, that there exists a fully functioning union-wide fiscal stabilisation system of automatic transfers to help offset the impact of the shock in the worst-affected areas. The European monetary union has no such fully developed automatic fiscal stabilisation mechanism, and this has exacerbated the crisis in many parts of the Eurozone: lacking monetary independence and a central fiscal mechanism, some countries of the Eurozone, such as Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy, have experienced particular difficulties in forging a recovery.
Relevant Posts
- Petrakos, George, Psycharis, Yannis, (2016), “The spatial aspects of economic crisis in Greece”, Oxford University Press, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Issue 1, Volume 9, pp. 137-152, March.
- Simiti, Marilena, (2015), “‘Social Need’ or ‘Choice’? Greek Civil Society during the Economic Crisis”, GreeSE Paper No.95, Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe, November.