European Union Post Crisis Challenges and Prospects for Growth

This book discusses the unprecedented impact of the financial and economic crisis on government finances and economic performance across Europe, which has raised skepticism on the ability of the current course of integration to promote prosperity. Correspondingly, the European Union is about to contract for the first time in its history. This timely book covers the economic issues that challenge the future of integration in Europe.

The chapters are authored by international experts and examine current and emerging challenges and trends for the European Union: economic convergence, monetary policy, competition law, transport policy, the informal sector, employment, recovery and enlargement.  Four chapters focus on Greece, which has been the greatest challenge faced by European institutions in the context of the sovereign debt crisis, and one chapter discusses the possible costs of Brexit. The reader will benefit from understanding the key economic challenges, which, if effectively addressed, will lead to deepening the union, or in contrast to a multi-speed Europe.

1. Post-Crisis Growth: Prospects in the European Union.- 2. Convergence Is Alive and Well in Europe.- 3. Unconventional Monetary Policy in the United States and Europe.- 4. Time to Tidy up EU Competition on Information Exchange Object Restriction Concerted Practices?.- 5. European Union Transport Policy: Post Crisis Challenges.- 6. Size of the Shadow Economies of 28 European Union Countries from 2003-2018: The Latest Development.- 7. Evaluating the Prevalence and the Working Conditions of Dependent Self-Employment in the European Union.- 8. Political Economy, Inward Foreign Direct Investment and EU Accession of the Western Balkans.- 9. Greece as a Bridge to the Most Vibrant Region of the Next Decades.- 10. The Third Hellenic Economic Adjustment Program: Success Story of Macroeconomic Stabilization or Failed Story of Economic Growth Restoration?.- 11. The Quality of Domestic Institutions as a Driver for the Initiation of Firms’ Exporting in the EU Post-Crisis Period.- 12. Labor Market Duality under the Insider-Outside Theory, Labor Division, Rent-Seeking, and Clientelism: The Case of a European Union Member Country.- 13. How the Economics Profession Got it Wrong on Brexit.

Vasileios A. Vlachos is a member of the Greek Shadow Economy Observatory and the International Conference on International Business. He has also been engaged in research projects about the shadow economy, and FDI in Greece and has been a contributor to Columbia FDI profiles. He has authored several articles in refereed journals and chapters in edited volumes, and has edited books and special issues of refereed journals.

Aristidis Bitzenis is Professor in the Department of International and European Studies at the University of Macedonia, Greece. He is the chair of the Greek Shadow Economy Observatory and the International Conference on International Business. He has supervised research projects about FDI in Greece and the Greek shadow economy and has been a contributor to Columbia FDI profiles. He has authored several monographs, articles in refereed journals, and chapters in edited volumes, and has edited several books and special issues of refereed journals.