The financial fragility and the crisis of the Greek government sector

The purpose of this paper is to develop Minskyan financial fragility indices for the government sector and to examine the financial structure of the Greek government before and after the onset of the sovereign debt crisis in 2009. We provide empirical evidence that clearly shows the growing financial fragility of the Greek public sector in the 2000s. We also assess the effectiveness of the implemented bailout adjustment programmes in Greece and claim that the conducted austerity measures and fiscal consolidation have not significantly improved the financial posture of the Greek government sector. We argue that the implementation of fiscal and wage austerity in an economy that lacks structural competitiveness produces prolonged recession and unemployment with adverse feedback effects on the financial fragility of the government

O projeto integrador em um curso de engenharia: uma primeira experiência / The integrator project in an engineering course: a first experience

Considerando as mudanças na formação do engenheiro que têm ocorrido nas últimas décadas, este trabalho tem por objetivo apresentar uma experiência que tem sido realizada nas faculdades de Engenharia Mecânica e Engenharia de Produção. Foi criada uma disciplina na graduação chamada projeto integrador com objetivo de integrar teoria e prática através da formulação de um protótipo, bem como, a realização de atividades que estimulem habilidade de trabalho em projetos, autonomia, avaliação por pares e empreendedorismo. Observa-se a relevância de iniciativas como estas para alcançar as habilidades e competências definidas nas Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais de Engenharia. Foi descrito no artigo como o projeto foi realizado, os resultados obtidos e a avaliação dos alunos sobre o projeto e o professor mediador

The strange non-death of employer and business associations: An analysis of their representativeness and activities in Western European countries

Against the background that corporatism is on the decline in recent decades, one could expect that the representativeness of employer and business associations is also declining. In this article it is argued and shown that, contrary to this expectation, this decline is not observable for employer and business associations. So the question arises as to whether employer and business associations are simply relics of a different era with no longer any purpose. Using a cross-national approach it is shown that by adapting their organizational structure as well as their activities to the changing needs of business, employer and business organizations are as ‘strong’ and active nowadays as ever

Reducing Economic Imbalances in the Euro Area: Some Remarks on the Current Stability Programs, 2011–14

This paper evaluates whether the 2011 national stability programs (SPs) of the euro area countries are instrumental in achieving economic stability in the European Monetary Union (EMU). In particular, we analyze how the SPs address the double challenge of public deficits and external imbalances. Our analysis rests, first, on the accounting identities of the public, private, and foreign financial balances; and second, on the consideration of all SPs at once rather than separately. We find that conclusions are optimistic regarding GDP growth and fiscal consolidation, while current account rebalancing is neglected. The current SPs reach these conclusions by assuming strong global export markets, entrenched current account imbalances within the EMU as well as the deterioration of private financial balances in the current account deficit countries. By means of our simulations we conclude, on the one hand, that the failure of favorable global macroeconomic developments to materialize may lead to the opposite of the desired stability by exacerbating imbalances in the euro area. On the other hand, given symmetric efforts at rebalancing, the simulation suggests that for surplus countries that reduce their current account, a more expansionary fiscal policy will likely be required to maintain growth rates

Integration, Spurious Convergence, and Financial Fragility: A Post-Keynesian Interpretation of the Spanish Crisis

The Spanish crisis is generally portrayed as resulting from excessive spending by households, associated with a housing bubble and/or excessive welfare spending beyond the economic possibilities of the country. We put forward a different hypothesis. We argue that the Spanish crisis resulted, in the main, from a widening deficit position in the nonfinancial corporate sector-the most important explanatory factor behind the country's rising external imbalance-and a declining trend in profitability under a regime of financial liberalization and loose and unregulated lending practices. This paper argues that the central cause of the crisis is related to the nonfinancial corporate sector's increasingly fragile financial position, which originated from the financial convergence that followed adoption of the euro

Sustainability performance in the Baltic Sea Region

The importance of sustainable development issues requires the engagement of all stakeholders in decision-making processes, as well as developing tactics and strategies. The complexity of this task increases on regional and international levels, where a huge amount of interests intersect or even contradict each other. To develop proper policy measures towards sustainability, it is essential to use appropriate performance assessment. Regardless of the existence of some macro estimation methods, vast gaps in practical use still remain. In this paper, a set of methods for assessing the sustainability performance of countries is outlined and discussed. The main advantages and weaknesses of the prevalent approaches are considered. Using available statistical data from open sources, sustainability performance assessment in countries within the Baltic Sea Region in the years 2005–2010 is carried out according to different methods and discussed, thus obtaining the profile of sustainability performance for countries in the Baltic Sea Region. The results of the calculations may be used for sharing with communities, detecting sustainability gaps in the countries’ economies, substantiating national and regional sustainable development strategies, and analyzing the investment attractiveness of the given region.</p