Greek Government Debt Research Articles

Instrumentalizing gender: from interwar fascism to the Alt Right in Greece

ABSTRACT This article examines the far-right discourses on gender in Greece focusing on two historical moments, namely the period between 1936 and 1941 when Greece was governed by the authoritarian regime of general Ioannis Metaxas, and the period between 2010 and 2022 which was defined by the Greek-government debt crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2021-2022 global energy crisis. It aims to demonstrate the instrumental logic lurking behind the gender rhetoric employed by the Far Right and bring to the fore both points of convergence and divergence. With regards to the Metaxas regime the article discusses the contradictions marking the official propaganda on women which seems to oscillate between deeply rooted conservative ideas on women’s role on the one hand, and the promotion of new ideals of femininity on the other hand. Fast-forward to today, the article examines the ways gender issues are manipulated by the emerging Alt Right in Greece. Via the theoretical lens of femonationalism and homonationalism, the article brings to the fore the contradictions between the breakthroughs with regards to feminist and LGBTQI demands on the one hand, and the systematic attempts to reintroduce an ultra-conservative agenda with regards to gender issues in Greece on the other hand.

Greek Government-Debt Crisis Events and European Financial Markets: Surprises of Greek Bond Yields and Inter-Relations of European Financial Markets

In this paper, we study the impact of Greek government-debt crisis events on European financial markets during the European sovereign debt crisis. We examine the effect of three categories of Greek government-debt crisis events in realized correlation and correlation jumps of government bonds, CDS and stock indices of seven European countries (Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Germany and France) via the respective dummy variables and news surprises of 2-year, 5-year and 10-year government bonds and CDS in a non-parametric framework by employing Tobit regression models. According to our results, the direction of most impacts on correlation and correlation jumps is negative. We also investigate the types of Greek government-debt crisis events that have the highest impacts on correlation and correlation jumps. Our findings provide valuable insight into the relationship between events related to Greek instability and European financial markets during the European sovereign debt crisis.

Collective action clauses in the euro area: a law and economic analysis of the first five years

This paper reviews the first five years of experience with Collective Action Clauses (CACs) for European sovereign debt, focusing on both the legal and the economic dimension. First, we present a chronology of the legislative acts to incorporate CACs in European sovereign debt contracts alongside landmark lawsuits that have challenged their viability in the context of the Greek government debt restructuring of 2012. Second, we find in an empirical analysis that the introduction of CACs and related lawsuits had limited effects on sovereign bond pricing, both around the time of their announcement as well as in the time since. Based on this treatment of CACs in European courts and on financial markets, we conclude that the gradual and ex-ante reform approach was less risky than relying on potential ex-post action.

The Euro

The Euro

Grexit news and stock returns

ABSTRACTDuring the first 8 months of 2015, there was an ongoing debate about whether or not Greece should remain in the euro area. Using an event study approach, we quantify the effects of Grexit-related statements made by six important euro area politicians (Merkel, Schaeuble, Tsipras, Varoufakis, Juncker, and Schulz) on intraday stock returns in Germany, Greece, and the euro area during the period of 1 January 2015–19 August 2015. We show that positive statements indicating that a Grexit is less likely lead to higher returns, and negative statements to lower returns. The overall impact of negative statements is more pronounced. The cumulative absolute effects on stock returns are sizeable as the statements contribute to a variation of up to 58 percentage points in the ATHEX. These large effects are of particular relevance as our study only captures an 8-month snapshot of the Greek Government debt crisis.

Hawkes-diffusion process and the conditional probability of defaults in the Eurozone

This study examines market information embedded in the European sovereign CDS (credit default swap) market by analyzing the sovereign CDSs of 13 Eurozone countries from January 1, 2008, to February 29, 2012, which includes the recent Eurozone debt crisis period. We design the conditional probability of defaults for the CDS prices based on the Hawkes-diffusion process and obtain the theoretical prices of CDS indexes. To estimate the model parameters, we calibrate the model prices to empirical prices obtained from individual sovereign CDS term structure data. The estimated parameters clearly explain both cross-sectional and time-series data. Our empirical results show that the probability of a huge loss event sharply increased during the Eurozone debt crisis, indicating a contagion effect. Even countries with strong and stable economies, such as Germany and France, suffered from the contagion effect. We also find that the probability of small events is sensitive to the state of the economy, spiking several times due to the global financial crisis and the Greek government debt crisis.

A Political Economy Application of the “Tragedy of the Anticommons”: The Greek Government Debt Crisis

The tragedy of the anticommons unfolds when separate social agents—be they private owners of a property who intend to use the property for their own economic benefit or political actors who pursue their political objectives—do not hold effective rights to use their economic or political power for their own purposes without consent of the other players of the economic or political game. I shall discuss the Greek government debt crisis and the Eurozone countries’ policies toward Greece within the analytical framework of the tragedy of the anticommons in this paper. I do not intend to dig deep into the structure and long-term trends of public and private finances in Greece. I shall only show that the successive bail-out programs of the Eurozone countries were doomed to fail because of these countries’ competitive and non-cooperative approach to the Greek financial problems. I shall also show that a coordinating agency, say the IMF, can foster the coordinated outcome only under strict informational conditions.

Government debt in Greece: An empirical analysis

Greek government debt has been increasing above the percentage stated in the growth and stability path from 112.9% in 2008 to 175.6% in 2013. This paper investigates the determinants of the general government debt in Greek by means of Vector Error Correction Model framework, Variance Decomposition and Generalized Impulse Response Function Analysis. The analysis showed a significant negative relationship between general government debt and government deficit, general government debt and inflation. Shocks to general government and inflation will cause general government debt to increase. Government deficit should be increased since there is gross capital formation included in its calculation which could be invested in income generating projects. The current account balance should be reduced by improving the net trade balance

The Impact of Government Expenditure on the Greek Government Debt: An Econometric Analysis

Sovereign debt crisis in advanced economies keep increasing and its government are implementing fiscal policies to reduce it. Greece is an example of a country whose government debt is a matter of grave concern since it has received the second bailout but still threatens to default. The main aim of this study is determine the impact of government expenditures and government incomes on government debt. This paper estimates the effect of government expenditure on debt in Greece via the vector error correction model framework and granger causality model with annual data from 1976 to 2011 which was collected from the World Development Indicators, European Commission data base and the International Monetary Fund. Vector Error correction Model framework is used to estimate our model and Vector Autoregression Granger causality to determine the direction of causation.The results show a significant negative relationship between gross government debt and gross national income as well as gross government debt and net foreign direct investment. A significant positive relationship is found between gross government debt and gross national expenditure and gross government debt and inflation. The past values of gross national expenditure and gross national income have a predictive ability in determining the present value of gross government debt and not vice versa. Knowing this effects will help policy makers of these countries and the world at larger to revisit its fiscal policy in order to reduce its debt and sustain it. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n3p323

How can a small country affect the European economy? The Greek contagion phenomenon

This study applies the asymmetric dynamic conditional correlation (A-DCC) model and employs copula functions to investigate the correlation dynamics among the Greek and European markets during the recent debt crisis. The Greek debt crisis occurred after the subprime mortgage crisis. Up to that point, the Greek stock market followed the larger stock markets, and Greek government debt should not have influenced other European markets. However, Greece is a member of the monetary union, and it is necessary to examine whether there exists a contagion effect on the other European Union (EU) member states. The findings support the existence of a contagion effect during crash periods but not during the Greek debt crisis.