scholarly journals Deepening Neoliberalism via Austerity and ‘Reform’: The Case of Ireland

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Fraser ◽  
Enda Murphy ◽  
Sinéad Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Labour Markets ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Corporation Tax ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Current Economic Crisis ◽  
Private Banks ◽  
New Phase ◽  
Bubble Burst

The current economic crisis – the ‘great recession’ – raises numerous questions about neoliberal ideas and practice, not the least of which is whether (and if so, how) neoliberalism can survive it. Our paper takes on these issues using the case of Ireland. This is the first proper neoliberal crisis in Ireland. From the early 1990s to 2008, Ireland was held up by many neoliberal champions as a place that gained from deregulation, openness to inward investment, and low corporation tax rates. But the build-up of contradictions in Ireland exploded rapidly in 2008, when its property bubble burst and private banks and government finances collapsed. Rather than examining what caused Ireland's crisis, we look at what has happened between 2008 and 2013. We focus on structural adjustments regarding the property, finance, and labour markets and then on the government's austerity programme as a whole. In addition to demonstrating how these adjustments have been an attack on workers and ordinary citizens, we identify some particularly striking elements, which we use to argue that a new phase of disturbance and restructuring is deepening and extending neoliberalism's influence in Ireland.

scholarly journals A fuzzy set approach to economic crisis, austerity and public health. Part I. European countries’ conformity to ideal types during the economic downturn

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (18_suppl) ◽  
pp. 41-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Therese Saltkjel ◽  
Mari Holm Ingelsrud ◽  
Espen Dahl ◽  
Knut Halvorsen
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Fuzzy Set ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Economic Downturn ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Current Economic Crisis ◽  
Welfare Generosity

Aims: This is the first part of a two-part paper that takes an explorative approach to assess crisis and austerity in European countries during the Great Recession. The ultimate aim of this two-part paper is to explore the “crisis–austerity” thesis by Stuckler and Basu and assess whether it is the interplay between austerity and crisis, rather than the current economic crisis per se, that can led to deterioration in population health. In Part I of this paper we offer one way of operationalizing crisis severity and austerity. We examine countries as specific configurations of crisis and policy responses and classify European countries into “ideal types.” Methods: Cases included were 29 countries participating in the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) surveys. Based on fuzzy set methodology, we constructed two fuzzy sets, “austerity” and “severe crisis.” Austerity was measured by changes in welfare generosity; severe crisis was measured by changes in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita growth. Results: In the initial phase of the Great Recession, most countries faced severe crisis combined with no austerity. From 2010–2011 onward, there was a divide between countries. Some countries consistently showed signs of austerity policies (with or without severe crisis); others consistently did not. Conclusions: The fuzzy set ideal-type analysis shows that the European countries position themselves, by and large, in configurations of crisis and austerity in meaningful ways that allow us to explore the “crisis–austerity” thesis by Stuckler and Basu. This exploration is the undertaking of Part II of this paper.

scholarly journals Social origins and the decision to leave university during the Great recession: the role of the field of study

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loris Vergolini ◽  
Eleonora Vlach
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Drop Out ◽  
Economic Downturn ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Drop Out Rate

The recent economic downturn has had profound influences on contemporary European societies. This paper analyzes how the Great Recession affected the drop-out rate among university students in Italy, and whether their chosen field of study moderated its effect. To examine the potential long-term effects of this economic downturn on social inequality, we also explore whether students from less-advantaged families who enrolled in prestigious fields were those pushed out from university in disproportionally high numbers. We investigate the interacting influence of the economic crisis, social inequalities and field of study on drop-out rate using data from the Istat “Survey on the educational and occupational paths of high school graduates” in two cohorts of university students (one who attended university prior to and one during the Great Recession). Results obtained from propensity score matching show that the economic crisis had a negative effect on university participation, which was however less strong for Medicine students. Students from lower socio-economic backgrounds in the most remunerative fields of study (those leading to liberal professions), tended to leave university more often than their well-off peers.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 258-274
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Hewitt
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
First Century ◽  
National Commission ◽  
Narrative Form ◽  
Simple Explanation ◽  
Global Finance ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Hollywood Films

This chapter turns to the twenty-first century to study the implications of narrative form to the representation of contemporary fiscal catastrophe. It argues that the legacy of the narrative dispute between the Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians can be seen in contemporary explanations of the Great Recession, including the 2011 report generated by the National Commission on the Causes of the Financial and Economic Crisis and two Hollywood films, The Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short. All three texts are shaped by both the imperative to represent the complexity of global finance and the impulse to offer a simple explanation.

Elusive equalities and the Great Recession: restoration, retrenchment and redistribution

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-441
Author(s):  
Janine Brodie
Keyword(s):  
Great Depression ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Crisis Responses

AbstractThe 2008 global financial meltdown, commonly called the ‘Great Recession’, was the most serious crisis in capitalism since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and a fundamental repudiation of neoliberal governing assumptions. This paper focuses on the contexts that informed two governmental responses to this economic crisis — restoration and retrenchment through public austerity. It explains that these responses were contingent, experimental, inequitable and, in the end, unsuccessful. Restoration and retrenchment, however, were entirely consistent with previous neoliberal crisis-responses and the abiding ambitions of this governing project. As the economic crisis crawled into the second half of a decade, the idea of inequality was increasingly identified as an underlying cause of crisis and its amelioration as a necessary part of rebuilding economies and communities in a post-crisis era. The paper tracks the case for the revival of equality politics and policies in the early twenty-first century.

scholarly journals The Role of Migration as Adjustment Mechanism in the Crisis and EMU

2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (6) ◽  
pp. 1497-1508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Huber
Keyword(s):  
Great Recession ◽  
Labour Markets ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Demographic Groups ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Adjustment Mechanism ◽  
Substantial Heterogeneity ◽  
The Eu

Using ELFS data from 2004 to 2014 we analyse labour migration as an adjustment mechanism to asymmetric regional labour demand shocks shortly before, during and after the Great Recession in the EU. The results suggest that in this period migration was rather responsive to regional economic conditions, but also point to a substantial heterogeneity across demographic groups, periods and country groups. The mobility of high‑skilled persons and foreign born contributed much more strongly to the adjustment of labour markets than the migration of less‑skilled and natives. Furthermore, among the large integration steps from 2004 to 2014 (i.e., the accession of 12 countries to the EU and the successive liberalisation of immigration from the countries joining the EU after 2004 and Euro accession) mainly the EU‑enlargements worked to improve the adjustment capability of European labour markets through migration.

“I never saw such people”

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Jonathan Dyen
Keyword(s):  
Great Recession ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Economic Downturn ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Grand Narrative ◽  
Literary Response ◽  
Grapes Of Wrath ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Current Economic Crisis

In this essay, I argue that John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath has taken on renewed significance in the midst of the current economic downturn known in the United States as “the Great Recession.” While in the 1930s Steinbeck’s novel offered a way of understanding and responding to the economic conditions of the Depression, today the novel foregrounds the degree to which postmodernism has foreclosed the utopian possibilities of the novel’s grand narrative. I contend that the novel’s methodology can provide a flawed but potent framework for an effective literary response to the current economic crisis.

Firm-Provided Training During the Great Recession

2014 ◽  
Vol 234 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lutz Bellmann ◽  
Hans-Dieter Gerner ◽  
Ute Leber
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
Further Training ◽  
Data Set ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Apprenticeship Training ◽  
Training Activities ◽  
The Impact

SummaryEven though the 2008/09 economic crisis had only minor employment effects on the German labor market, it might have affected firms’ further training and apprenticeship training behavior. From a theoretical point of view, the impact of the business cycle on firms’ training behaviour is ambiguous. There are reasons for an increase of training during a downturn (e.g., declining opportunity costs of training, fewer exit options for trained workers) as well as arguments for a decrease of training (e.g., uncertain future benefits of training). The existing empirical evidence on the relationship between training and economic downturns is relatively scarce. In particular, we are not aware of any empirical study investigating the effects of the most recent crisis on firms’ training activities in Germany. Our paper aims to fill this gap by using data from the IAB Establishment Panel, a representative German panel data set with annual information about almost 16,000 establishments. In particular, we analyzed the provision and the intensity of further training and apprenticeship training in firms which were affected by the crisis and in those which were not. Our empirical investigation revealed that the establishments, irrespective of whether or not they were hit by the economic crisis, decreased their further training and apprenticeship training efforts in 2009 compared to 2008. However, establishments directly affected by the great recession tended to reduce their training activities more often than those which were not affected. Furthermore, we found much stronger variations in the development of firms’ further training activities than in the development of their apprenticeship training.

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