Economic Growth and Structural Reforms in Europe

Description

In contrast to the USA, Europe has struggled to return to the growth path it was on prior to the financial crisis of 2007-11. Not only has the recovery been slow, it has also been variable with Europe's core countries recovering more quickly than those on the periphery. It is widely believed that the best way to address this slow recovery is through structural reform programmes whereby changes in government policy, regulatory frameworks, investment incentives and labour markets are used to encourage more efficient markets and higher economic growth. This book is the first to provide a critical assessment of these reforms, with a new theoretical framework, new data and new empirical methodologies. It includes several case studies of countries such as Greece, Portugal and France that introduced significant reforms, revealing that such programmes have very divergent, and not always positive, effects on economic growth, employment and income inequality.

Nauro F. Campos is Professor of Economics at University College London and Research Professor at ETH-Zurich. His main fields of interest are political economy and European integration. He has taught at the Universities of Bonn, Brunel, CERGE-EI (Prague), Newcastle, Paris 1 Sorbonne and Warwick. He was a Fulbright Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, a Robert McNamara Fellow at The World Bank, and a CBS Fellow at the University of Oxford. He is a Research Fellow at IZA-Bonn, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the (Central) Bank of Finland, a Senior Fellow of the ESRC Peer Review College and was a visiting scholar at the IMF, World Bank, European Commission, University of Michigan, ETH, USC, Bonn, UCL and Stockholm. Paul De Grauwe is Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He was a member of the Belgian parliament from 1991 to 2003. He is honorary doctor of the Universitat St Gallen, Switzerland, the University of Turku, Finland, Universita degli Studi di Genova, Universitat de Valencia, and Universiteit Maastricht, Netherlands. He has taught at the universities of Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Kiel, Milan, Pennsylvania and Michigan. He is a research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels and CEPR fellow in London. His research interests are in the economics of monetary unions and behavioural macroeconomics. He is the author of The Limits of the Market (2017), The Economics of Monetary Union, 11th Edition (2016) and Lectures on Behavioral Macroeconomics (2012). Yuemei Ji is Associate Professor of Economics at University College London. She was a visiting fellow at the European Institute at LSE and the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels. She gives lectures on European Macroeconomics and International Macroeconomics. Her research interests cover international macroeconomics in general and the European Monetary Union during the post-crisis period in particular, and she has done intensive research on the causes of Eurozone debt crisis and its impact on the austerity policies in the Eurozone.

'This remarkable book edited by Campos, De Grauwe and Ji is a testament to the importance of the analysis of impulse responses. The Global Financial Crisis (impulse) continues to influence our lives through various structural reform mechanisms (responses) and will do so for a very long time. A fascinating and balanced read for everyone interested in economics and more broadly in social sciences.' Yunus Aksoy, Birkbeck, University of London 'The declines in economic growth rates across European countries have revived the call for structural reform. However, there are many different types of structural reform and some calls for reform are politically motivated. Therefore, this book fills an important gap by presenting a comprehensive overview of the existing knowledge on different types of reform and the evidence of their effectiveness. Politicians, commentators, academics as well as the public at large can benefit from reading this book and learn what would be most suitable type of reform for what country if any.' Wouter DenHaan , London School of Economics 'Structural reforms are typically viewed as the solution to Europe's sluggish growth. This important collection of essays explains when they work and how.' Andre Sapir, Universite libre de Bruxelles