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The Greek and Icelandic IMF programmes compared

Katsimi, Margarita, Zoega, Gylfi, (2015), “The Greek and Icelandic IMF programmes compared”, Voxeu, 19 November. Iceland and Greece were both seriously affected by the Global Crisis, yet their experiences with the implemented IMF programmes have been quite different. In Iceland the programme has been a success, whereas the one in Greece has been a failure. This column explains why this happened. First, Iceland’s external debt was de jure private, while Greece’s …Read More

Pension Poor and Housing rich in Greece? A generational perspective argues for policy entrepreneurship

Tinios, Platon, (2015), “Pension Poor and Housing rich in Greece? A generational perspective argues for policy entrepreneurship”, LSE blog, 12 November The Greek crisis can be framed as an ageing narrative. Greece confronted dilemmas that all ageing societies are bound to face. For example, it was forced in June 2015 to choose between discharging a legal obligation – repaying the IMF– and an ethical obligation – paying pensions; ethics won out. …Read More

A More Ambitious Agenda Needed to Combat Greek Debt

Hyppolite, Paul-Adrien, Roussille, Nina, (2015), “A More Ambitious Agenda Needed to Combat Greek Debt”, Economonitor, 14 November. The July 12th euro area summit ended with a last minute agreement that avoided an imminent ‘Grexit’. Even before negotiating the third bailout program, the Greek government accepted several conditions imposed by its European partners. Among these, the most debated is the creation of a fund to monetize €50bn of public assets through privatizations and other means, …Read More

Alternative measures of government indebtedness

Dias, Daniel A., Wright, Mark L. J., (2015), “Alternative measures of government indebtedness”,Voxeu, 13 November. Measured as a percentage of its GDP, Greece’s debt is higher than that of Portugal and Ireland. This column discusses a range of new techniques for measuring the debts of Greece, Ireland, and Portugal. It argues that plausible alternative measures of indebtedness suggest that Greece is anywhere from as much as 50% more indebted than Portugal and …Read More

New Countdown For Greece: A Bank Bail-in Is Looming

Minenna, Marcello, (2015), “New Countdown For Greece: A Bank Bail-in Is Looming”, Social Europe, 4 November. The debt crisis may no longer be in the spotlight but the financial situation in Greece remains complex. Greek banks continue to survive at the edge of bankruptcy, kept afloat only by Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) from the ECB and by still-enforced capital controls. After the August “agreement”, the Troika has promised the Greek government €25 billion …Read More

What should be done with Greek banks to help the country return to a path of growth

Avgouleas, Emilios, Papadimitriou, Dimitri B., (2015), “What should be done with Greek banks to help the country return to a path of growth”, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, 2015/6, October The battered Greek banks will soon face another round of recapitalization, yet the prospects for a return to their precrisis role as liquidity providers to the economy are unlikely. In this context, it is imperative to remind the country’s creditors and the officials …Read More

The Pitfalls of External Dependence: Greece, 1829-2015

Reinhart M., Carmen, Trebesch, Christoph,  (2015), “The pitfalls of external dependence: Greece, 1829-2015”, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, September. Two centuries of Greek debt crises highlight the pitfalls of relying on external financing. Since its independence in 1829, the Greek government has defaulted four times on its external creditors, and it was bailed out in each crisis. We show that cycles of external crises and dependence are a perennial theme of …Read More

Three days to save the euro

Traynor, Ian, (2015), “Three days to save the euro”, The Guardian, 22 October Late on the afternoon of Friday 10 July, as European finance ministers were packing their bags for Brussels to attend yet another meeting on the Greek debt crisis, a shocking email from Berlin landed in the inboxes of a very small number of top officials. Earlier that week, the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, had been given an …Read More

Greece budget update – October

Merler, Sylvia, (2015), “Greece budget update – October”, Bruegel publications, 19 October While it has to be stressed that the targets considered in the budget execution bulletins are still those from the old 2015 budget (not the new targets under the new programme), this development is nevertheless an interesting reversal of previous tendencies. Relevant Posts Merler, Sylvia, (2015), “Greece budget update – September”, Bruegel publications, 22 September Merler, Sylvia, (2015), “Greece budget …Read More