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Die Eurokrise hat ihren Ursprung nicht nur in einer Staatsschuldenkrise. Sie wurde ebenfalls durch eine Zahlungsbilanzkrise verursacht. Ein breit gefächerter Ansatz in der Wirtschaftspolitik ist daher erforderlich, um die Eurozone auf einen nachhaltig stabilen und dynamischen Wachstumspfad zurückzubringen. ; A multi-faceted approach is required for the euro area to restore sustainable growth and prevent a vicious circle of public- and private-sector deleveraging leading to weaker economic activity which in turn results in a further deterioration in banks' asset quality. While avoiding discretionary fiscal expansion, creditor countries should work together with debtor countries to accelerate micro-economic reforms in product, services and labor markets to achieve greater macro-economic convergence in the euro area. This, with together the restoration of the health and resilience of the banking sector, is the key to the area's viability. The ECB's policy to avoid any deflationary bias while stabilizing inflation at or around 2 per cent for the euro-area as a whole should be another component of such an approach.

AbstractThe theory of capitalist urbanization posits that the built form serves as a crucial sink through which overaccumulated capital is 'switched' from industrial production into long‐term investment in urban infrastructure. Since Harvey's (1978) deployment of the theory, researchers have attempted to empirically substantiate the switching thesis with limited success. Christophers (2011) revisited the debate with new data and methods to support the claim that significant investment had switched into the built environment at the onset of the 2007/08 financial crisis. However, Christophers' study overlooks how crises are also geographically displaced. This article analyses Spanish trade data for the years 1993 to 2013, the years prior and subsequent to the housing‐induced economic crisis (1997 to 2006). Two studies are undertaken. The first replicates Christophers' methodology to assess how and to what extent a sectoral switch into property investment occurred in Spain between 1997 and 2006. The second modifies the methodology to investigate the extent to which overaccumulated capital in Spain has been geographically displaced through investment in the Moroccan building industry since 2006. These approaches situate uneven development (geographical switching) and turnover time (sectoral switching) as the twin dynamics through which capitalist urbanization is spatio‐temporally fixed.

The article provides a comparative study of Slovenia and Slovakia to analyse the transformation of dependent accumulation regimes in the Eurozone periphery after 2010. The study of these two economies from CEE is particularly insightful to understand how the Eurozone countries from the industrial periphery coped with the challenges of restructuring after the outbreak of the crisis. The article combines dependency and régulationist approaches to study European asymmetrical accumulation regimes. We argue that the post-crisis economic trajectories in CEE continue to reflect main traits of the pre-crisis asymmetrical relationship with the core. The key vulnerabilities are linked to the ongoing reliance on FDI for export industrialisation, the narrow export specialisation, and, particularly in Slovakia, a rapid expansion of household debt. In Slovenia, under the EU supervision, the pre-crisis private debts were shifted to the public sector and henceforth burden public investment. Our findings suggest that financialisation as well the Eurozone monetary constraints should be systemically included in the analysis of post-crisis CEE growth trajectories. In addition, despite economic recovery, the accumulation regimes at Eurozone industrialised periphery continue to exhibit strong anti-labour bias.

The article provides a comparative study of Slovenia and Slovakia to analyse the transformation of dependent accumulation regimes in the Eurozone periphery after 2010. The study of these two economies from CEE is particularly insightful to understand how the Eurozone countries from the industrial periphery coped with the challenges of restructuring after the outbreak of the crisis. The article combines dependency and régulationist approaches to study European asymmetrical accumulation regimes. We argue that the post-crisis economic trajectories in CEE continue to reflect main traits of the pre-crisis asymmetrical relationship with the core. The key vulnerabilities are linked to the ongoing reliance on FDI for export industrialisation, the narrow export specialisation, and, particularly in Slovakia, a rapid expansion of household debt. In Slovenia, under the EU supervision, the pre-crisis private debts were shifted to the public sector and henceforth burden public investment. Our findings suggest that financialisation as well the Eurozone monetary constraints should be systemically included in the analysis of post-crisis CEE growth trajectories. In addition, despite economic recovery, the accumulation regimes at Eurozone industrialised periphery continue to exhibit strong anti-labour bias.

During the sovereign debt crisis, many Euro countries have deployed "austerity packages" implementing structural reforms and cutting government spending. Such policies should have led to an initial decline in GDP followed by recovery and a reduction of the debt to gdp ratio. Key to this outcome is the size and sign of expenditure multipliers when the economy is in a recession. We estimate, for the Eurozone countries, expenditure multipliers in recession and expansion using the linear projection approach and forecast errors to identify exogenous expenditure shocks. The empirical evidence suggests that, in a recession, an increase in government spending will be effective in boosting aggregate demand, crowding-in private consumption in the short-to-medium run, without raising the debt to gdp ratio but rather decreasing it. The opposite applies in expansions. Estimates also show that expenditure multipliers, in a recession, are larger in high debt/deficit countries than in low debt/deficit countries. In a recession,fiscal consolidation based on expenditure cuts would have both short and medium run contractionary effects.

During the sovereign debt crisis, many Euro countries have deployed \austerity packages" implementing structural reforms and cutting government spending. Such policies should have led to an initial decline in GDP followed by recovery and a reduction of the debt to gdp ratio. Key to this outcome is the size and sign of expenditure multipliers when the economy is in a recession. We estimate, for the Eurozone countries, expenditure multipliers in recession and expansion using the linear projection approach and forecast errors to identify exogenous expenditure shocks. The empirical evidence suggests that, in a recession, an increase in government spending will be eective in boosting aggregate demand, crowding-in private consumption in the shortto- medium run, without raising the debt to gdp ratio but rather decreasing it. The opposite applies in expansions. Estimates also show that expenditure multipliers, in a recession, are larger in high debt/dect countries than in low debt/decit countries. In a recession, scal consolidation based on expenditure cuts would have both short and medium run contractionary effects.

Doutoramento em Economia ; A política orçamental, através da gestão das receitas e despesas públicas, é usualmente utilizada pelos decisores políticos para influenciar a atividade económica, nomeadamente através do controlo do rendimento disponível, de uma reafectação eficiente dos recursos existentes, do fornecimento de bens e serviços, bem como da correção de falhas de mercado. De acordo com o disposto na teoria Keynesiana, elaborada durante a Grande Recessão (década de 1930), os efeitos da política orçamental deverão variar de acordo com a fase do ciclo económico e dos instrumentos utilizados, sendo estes mais necessários e eficazes durante recessões. Contudo, em alguns episódios históricos, a evidência empírica parece contrariar as previsões teóricas efetuadas à luz da teoria Keynesiana, originando os comumente chamados efeitos não-Keynesianos da política orçamental. Por sua vez, a última Grande Recessão trouxe, uma vez mais, o debate relativo à eficácia da política orçamental para a literatura económica. Os elevados montantes de dívida pública acumulados na generalidade das economias europeias ocidentais comprometeram a sua sustentabilidade e restringiram decisões políticas, o que gerou repercussões tanto nos custos de financiamento soberano como no bem-estar social. Assim, diversos Estados Membros da Zona Euro foram forçados a implementar medidas mais restritivas de forma a conseguirem reduzir os seus desequilíbrios orçamentais, num cenário em que a política cambial se encontrava inacessível, e em que a taxa de inflação se apresentou especialmente baixa. Neste contexto, a presente tese debruça-se sobre o impacto macroeconómico da política orçamental nos Estados Membros da UEM, averiguando como este poderá variar de acordo com os instrumentos utilizados e com fatores intrínsecos de cada país, tendo em atenção tópicos relevantes que ainda não estão suficientemente explorados na literatura. É ainda analisado se, e como, a política orçamental poderá ser manipulada de acordo com motivações eleitoralistas, nomeadamente se as evidências empíricas dão suporte às previsões do modelo de "despesa visível" de Rogoff, ou ao modelo de despesa pública direcionada. Por outras palavras, se um hipotético aumento de despesa estará associado a mais despesas correntes, ou se existirão investimentos direcionados para satisfazer as pretensões de grupos ou regiões específicas. Num primeiro momento, foram calculados os valores dos multiplicadores orçamentais desde a criação da União Monetária. De acordo com os resultados obtidos, a despesa pública nos Estados Membros tem um impacto positivo sobre a atividade económica (multiplicador de 0,44), sendo o impacto maior perante menores níveis de endividamento soberano, recessões económicas e fases negativas do ciclo económico (hiato do produto negativo). Por sua vez, a receita fiscal apresenta valores negativos, compreendidos entre -0,11 e -0,55, podendo, no entanto, revelar um impacto expansionista em países com menores níveis de dívida pública. Porém, nem sempre as políticas resultam nos resultados expectáveis. Foram estimadas elasticidades do consumo privado, face aos instrumentos orçamentais, durante o período de 1960-2017, de forma a aferir como as elasticidades variam perante episódios orçamentais (claras ações políticas, como expansões ou consolidações orçamentais). As evidências indicam que as transferências sociais poderão estar na origem dos efeitos não-Keynesianos da política orçamental, uma vez o consumo privado apresenta elasticidades negativas face às suas variações, durante períodos de consolidação. Ainda, os episódios não-Keynesianos tornaram-se menos prováveis de serem observados após os países integrarem a Zona Euro, dado que os gastos em investimentos e as outras despesas deixaram de apresentar uma relação negativa com o consumo privado. Foi também observado que as transferências sociais aparentam ter um impacto mais recessivo durante consolidações, que aquele observado perante expansões ou na ausência de episódios orçamentais. Utilizando uma abordagem alternativa para identificar consolidações orçamentais (abordagem narrativa), foi constatado que o consumo privado continua a exibir uma resposta não-Keynesiana a choques fiscais. Por último, a política orçamental aparenta ainda ser sensível a fatores políticos. Durante anos eleitorais, os decisores políticos tendem a aumentar as despesas correntes e a diminuir o peso dos impostos diretos. Porém, a estratégia orçamental tem sofrido algumas alterações ao longo dos anos. Desde a Grande Recessão, os Estados Membros aparentam ter perdido a sua capacidade para manipular a despesa pública com objetivos eleitoralistas, e começaram a diminuir os impostos indiretos. Também, após os Estados Membros aderirem à UEM, os decisores políticos começaram a aumentar a carga fiscal dos seus países face a choques na taxa de juro, uma vez que perderam a capacidade de recorrer à política monetária. ; The fiscal policy, through the management of public revenue and expenditure, is usually used by policy makers to influence economic activity, namely through the control of available income, the reallocation of resources, the supply of goods and services or the correction of market failures. Following the Keynesian perspective, designed during the Great Depression (1930's), the effects of fiscal policy should vary over the stages of the business cycle and over fiscal instruments used, being more needed and effective during recessions. However, in some historical cases, the empirical evidence seems to contradict the theoretical predictions in the spirit of the Keynesian theory, giving rise to the so-called non-Keynesian effects of fiscal policy. Therefore, the last Great Recession brought the effectiveness of fiscal policy back into debate in the economic literature. The high amounts of sovereign debt accumulated in the majority of the western European economies have been jeopardizing the sustainability of public debts, restricting political decisions, with repercussions on sovereign financing costs and on people's welfare. Thus, several Eurozone's Member States were forced to implement more restrictive policies in order to reduce their budgetary imbalances, in a scenario where the exchange rate policies are unavailable, and the inflation rate has been especially low. In this context, this thesis focuses on the macroeconomic impact of fiscal policy on the Member States, assessing how it may vary according to the fiscal instruments used, and to country specific characteristics, taking into account some relevant topics not very explored yet in the literature. It is also analysed whether, and how, the fiscal policy can be manipulated according to electoral motivations, namely if evidence supports the predictions of the Rogoff's "visibility expenditure" model or the Public expenditure targeting model, i.e., if the hypothetical expenditure increase will be associated with current expenditure, or if the capital expenditure will be used as a target to specific groups and locations. Firstly, it was computed the value of fiscal multipliers since the creation of the currency union. According to the results, public expenditure in Member States has a positive impact on economic growth (multiplier of 0.44), with a bigger impact on the less indebted countries, facing economic recessions and negative output gaps. In turn, tax revenue has negative values, between -0.11 and -0.55, but it can reveal an expansionary impact in countries with lower levels of public debt. However, policies do not always result in the expected results. Elasticities of private consumption to fiscal instruments were estimated during the period 1960-2017, to access how fiscal elasticities vary during fiscal episodes (clear policy actions, such as fiscal expansions or consolidations). Evidence indicates that social benefits may be a root of the non-Keynesian effects of fiscal policy, since private consumption shows negative elasticities facing social benefits' shocks, during periods of fiscal consolidation. In addition, non-Keynesian episodes became less likely to be observed after countries joined the Eurozone, given that investment spending and other expenditures have lost their non-Keynesian role. It was also perceived that social transfers seem to be more contractionary in consolidations than in both expansions and in the absence of fiscal episodes. Using an alternative approach to identify fiscal consolidations (narrative approach), it is seen that private consumption continues to exhibit a non-Keynesian response to tax increases. Lastly, fiscal policy in the Eurozone countries appears to be sensitive to political factors. During election years, the incumbent Governments seem to increase current spending and to decrease the direct tax burden. However, the fiscal strategy has changed over the years. Since the Great Recession, Member States have lost their ability to manipulate the Government spending for electoral purposes and began to decrease the indirect tax burden. Furthermore, after countries joined the EMU, policy makers began to increase tax burden facing interest rate shocks, since they have lost the ability to use monetary policy. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Purpose: The main goal of the paper is to establish the importance of capital mobility for the occurrence of the credit booms in some EMU countries, which contributed to the so-called Eurozone crisis in the previous decade. In particular, a causal relationship between foreign capital inflows and expansions of credit to the private sector in five advanced "periphery" Eurozone economies (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) in 1996–2016 is examined. Design/Methodology/Approach: A threshold method for identifying credit booms, and the Granger causality test were applied to investigate the relationship between foreign capital inflows and expansion of credit to the private sector in the PIIGS countries. We used data of an annual frequency over the years 1996–2016 and discuss the effects of using different measures for both capital inflows and credit expansion. Findings: The results allowed the authors to identify and measure credit booms in the PIIGS countries from 2006 to 2011. It has been shown that one of the reasons for the over-indebtedness of households and companies in these countries was the inflow of cheap and easily accessible capital, especially in the form of portfolio investments. Practical Implications: The results of the research can be used to assess the importance of the free movement of capital for financial stability in Eurozone countries. Originality/Value: The study contributes to a better understanding of the functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union as regards the links between capital flows in the financial market and the emergence of credit booms. ; peer-reviewed