The Great Recession has increased concerns over the fairness of the distribution of wealth and income in many societies. Using data on eight advanced economies (Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, the United Kingdom, and United States) between 2007 and 2010, I show how the Great...

Social vulnerability due to insufficient income and earnings may come from many sources, both demographic and economic, in a globalizing world. This paper examines the problems of population aging, low wages, growing inequality, and insufficient social spending. Vulnerable groups such as...

This paper examines the link between socio-economic development and fiscal policy. We introduce an indicator for socio-economic development (SEDI) and investigate its relationship with different fiscal variables, using data for the cohesion countries, namely Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland...

The aim of this paper is to study the main macroeconomic, financial and structural factors that shaped current account developments in Greece over the period from 1960 to 2007 and discuss these developments in relation to the issue of external sustainability. Concerns over Greece’s external...

The study looks at primary expenditure developments in the euro area, its three largest members and four “macro-imbalances” countries for the period 1999-2009. It compares actual expenditure trends with those that would have prevailed if countries had followed neutral policies based on...

This paper examines changes in the Greek wage distribution over 1995-2002 and the role of skills in these changes using a matched employer-employee data set. This data set enables us to account for firm heterogeneity and obtain a more refined picture of the impact of skills. The methodology...