{"id":1909,"date":"2007-01-01T22:13:40","date_gmt":"2007-01-01T20:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardouvelis.gr\/?p=1909"},"modified":"2023-08-02T16:01:29","modified_gmt":"2023-08-02T13:01:29","slug":"greek-economy-can-13-year-expansion-streak-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardouvelis.gr\/el\/greek-economy-can-13-year-expansion-streak-continue\/","title":{"rendered":"The Greek economy: Can the 13-year expansion streak continue?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The Greek economy: Can the 13-year expansion streak continue?<\/strong><br \/>\n\u0393\u03ba\u03af\u03ba\u03b1\u03c2 \u0391. \u03a7\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03bf\u03cd\u03b2\u03b5\u03bb\u03b7\u03c2<br \/>\nKathimerini English Edition<br \/>\n<em>2007<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>\u0395\u03b9\u03c3\u03b1\u03b3\u03c9\u03b3\u03ae:<\/h3>\n<p>Since 1994, Greece is going through a remarkable uninterrupted 13-year<br \/>\nexpansion, surpassing all expectations. Since 1996, it grows at rates well above the<br \/>\ncorresponding rates in the EU-15 countries (Figure 1) and its citizens witness their<br \/>\nstandard of living getting increasingly closer to the EU-15 average &#8211; now at 79%, but<br \/>\nin reality a lot closer as the new upward-revised GDP numbers will soon show. The<br \/>\nmain culprit for this positive momentum can be traced back to the mid-1990s and<br \/>\nGreece\u2019s decision to prepare for joining the Euro Area, as politicians were then forced<br \/>\nto put the government\u2019s fiscal house in order and contain inflation. The subsequent<br \/>\ndrop in nominal and real interest rates and the stable macroeconomic environment<br \/>\ngenerated a boom in investment activity, bringing investment up from 19% of GDP in<br \/>\n1995 to 26% in 2006. A rapid credit expansion to households also unleashed a<br \/>\nproperty and consumption boom across the country. Structural reforms and extensive<br \/>\nprivatizations in the banking sector, the telecoms industry and other public utilities<br \/>\nimproved private sector efficiency. Greek firms grew larger in size, became more<br \/>\ncompetitive and crossed the border, selling more aggressively to the new democracies<br \/>\nof the former Eastern block and establishing subsidiaries in the neighboring countries,<br \/>\ntaking advantage of the cheap labor. The creation of independent regulatory agencies<br \/>\nformed a new system of checks and balances on the authority of government and of<br \/>\nlarge companies, improved transparency and brought a new level playing field into<br \/>\ntraditional business operations and practices. At the same time, a large inflow of<br \/>\nimmigrants from Albania and other Eastern European countries, most of them illegal,<br \/>\nincreased the labor force by approximately 20% and satisfied the low-skill needs of an<br \/>\never expanding and service-oriented economy.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/hardouvelis.gr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/TheGreekEconomy2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Download Article<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Greek economy: Can the 13-year expansion streak continue? \u0393\u03ba\u03af\u03ba\u03b1\u03c2 \u0391. \u03a7\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03bf\u03cd\u03b2\u03b5\u03bb\u03b7\u03c2 Kathimerini English Edition 2007 \u0395\u03b9\u03c3\u03b1\u03b3\u03c9\u03b3\u03ae: Since 1994, Greece<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8],"tags":[3244],"yst_prominent_words":[2253,2255,2252,295,1194,111,536,694,1683,345,2256,1896,2254,125,826],"class_list":["post-1909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-press-articles","tag-arthra"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardouvelis.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardouvelis.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardouvelis.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardouvelis.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardouvelis.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1909"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hardouvelis.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1911,"href":"https:\/\/hardouvelis.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909\/revisions\/1911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardouvelis.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardouvelis.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardouvelis.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardouvelis.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1909"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardouvelis.gr\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}