Greece

A discussion on Brexit with Iain Begg, Professorial Research Fellow at the European Institute, London School of Economics.

Economist James K. Galbraith warns that ‘unrealistic expectations’ by Athens’ creditors is a recipe for turmoil

Professor Richard Portes discusses the problems of Europe and then specifically drills down into Greece itself.

As Greece heads to the polls, a look back at the crisis and what the future will bring.

The latest austerity deal is terrible for Greece and Europe.

In the last couple of months, Greece has once again become the center of attention of politicians, academics, and the general public. The debate has, for a large part, focused on Greece’s fiscal deficit as if it were just a self-inflicted Greek problem. But is it?

Dubious transactions and flimsy accounting standards need scrutiny.

As I write this it would be appear that the Greek crisis is finally coming to an end. In this report I would like to discuss why the negotiations were so fraught and what an agreement actually means. In a nutshell, the EU sought to address matters with the same kinds of measures that had been tried in the past, while Greece argued that doing so would not make things any better—and would in fact make them far worse.

The Eurozone crisis has been wrongly interpreted as either a crisis of fiscal profligacy or of deteriorating unit-labour cost competitiveness (caused by rigid labour markets), or a combination of both.

A look behind the scenes of the Greek referendum and what could happen next.

The thunder from the Greek “No” vote in the referendum on Sunday, July 5 continues to roll around the world.

It is a shame that Greece was unable to manage its finances and is now slipping into chaos. But this outcome was inevitable and could not be permanently averted with loans from the international community.

It is time for Greece to make a daring leap and adopt its own currency, says Ifo President Hans-Werner Sinn. “The drachma should be introduced immediately as a virtual currency,” Sinn said in Munich.

The ECB has decided to maintain its current level of emergency liquidity to Greece (ECB 2015). By refusing to extend additional emergency liquidity, the ECB has decided that Greece must leave the Eurozone. This may be a legal necessity or a political judgement call, or both. Anyway, it raises a host of unpleasant questions about the treatment of a member country and about the independence of the central bank.

Greece: reculer pour mieux sauter

The rising crescendo of bickering and acrimony within Europe might seem to outsiders to be the inevitable result of the bitter endgame playing out between Greece and its creditors. In fact, European leaders are finally beginning to reveal the true nature of the ongoing debt dispute, and the answer is not pleasant: it is about power and democracy much more than money and economics.

According to Reuters, Eurozone officials attempted to suppress the publication of this report.

The International Monetary Fund’s chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, recently asked a simple and important question: “How much of an adjustment has to be made by Greece, how much has to be made by its official creditors?” But that raises two more questions: How much of an adjustment has Greece already made? And have its creditors given anything at all?

As Greece descended into a financial maelstrom in the spring of 2010, a small group of staffers at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) held top-secret talks with officials from the German and French finance ministries to discuss the idea of restructuring Greece’s debt.

Yanis Varoufakis and Joseph Stiglitz discuss Greece’s financial challenges and the associated Eurozone politics in this exclusive conversation.

How should the Eurozone handle unemployment and other immediate hurdles?

Since the outbreak of the Greek debt crisis at the end of 2009, the Eurozone finds itself in an unprecedented debt crisis.

Owing to its strong dependence on exports, Germany was among the economies hit hardest by the financial crisis.