Small Firms as a Blind Spot in Greek Austerity Economics

This paper offers an interpretation of the Greek crisis focusing on the role of small firms. Most accounts of the crisis stress austerity resulting from macroeconomic conditions imposed from the outside. The paper argues that this is reductionist and ignores that the origin of the crisis lies in internal structural problems. Weaknesses in the productive structure explain why the Greek economy has not been able to recover. A key – but widely overlooked – feature of this productive structure is the preponderance of the small firms. Unpacking this small firm economy helps to understand the origin and persistence of the crisis and to see new ways forward. Analysing the Greek economy through this lens, we can offer an explanation spanning the entire period from the 1960s – the transformation of Greece from an emerging economy to EU member and ultimately to the EZ problem child. Far from being an obstacle to growth, dynamic small firms in the past showed resilience and withstood major shocks – entry into the EU, globalisation and EZ membership. The distinguishing feature of the present crisis – and the reason why exit is proving so difficult – is that small firms have been hit harder and have yet to recover. Moreover, misdiagnosing the crisis in exclusively macro terms, may make small firms’ situation worse. The paper attempts to fill the blind spot by proposing a scheme with two types of small firms – one dynamic and outward looking – aiming to compete – and another defensive and inward faced – looking to the state for protection. The latter were key players in clientelistic political economy, while propping them up imposed burdens on dynamic firms and required persistent borrowing. Dynamic firms were further burdened by a version of the ‘Dutch disease’ – the impact of capital inflows in marginalising efficient producers – providing a bridge between micro and macro considerations. Recovery in Greece without dynamic small firms is only possible in the presence of an external Deus Ex Machina – in the form of foreign investment, debt relief or both. Reading the crisis as a crisis of production and not exclusively one of public finance is a first step towards setting a viable exit strategy. Ending austerity may be a necessary, but certainly not a sufficient condition. Industrial policy towards small enterprise has a crucial role

Home bitter home? Gender, living arrangements, and the exclusion from homeownership among older Europeans

Abstract Homeownership is the most important asset among the elderly in Europe, but very little is known about gender and living arrangement differences in this domain. This paper aims at exploring patterns of exclusion from homeownership among middle-aged and older Europeans from a gender perspective, and with a special focus on their household composition. The analysis is based on the fourth wave of the “Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe” and includes a sub-sample of about 56,000 individuals aged 50 or over, living in 16 European countries. We estimated a set of multinomial logit models to examine the probability of being either tenant or rent-free occupiers versus homeowners. Our findings show that women are generally more likely to be excluded from homeownership than men. Nevertheless, a closer look suggests that the gender gap in homeownership is essentially generated by compositional differences between men and women, with the most relevant factor being household type. Older women are almost as twice as likely as men to live alone, which is associated—other things being equal—with a particular low likelihood to be homeowners virtually in every European country

Small firms and flexible specialisation in Greek industry

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DX89277 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Telling the Sudanese story in Athens through a gender lens

This article analyses the part that gender negotiations are playing in the making of Sudanese identity in Athens at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In an attempt to define the Sudanese version of the Athenian story, Sudanese men and women who undertake collective action rework differentiate them from newcomers and other Africans. The vindication of Arabness requires boundary work in which women and men perform different tasks in order to get recognition and elaborate their mobility story. The positioning of the Sudanese in the ethnic constellation of Athens is made possible through a gendered division of symbolic and material labor that takes place within the frame of the Sudanese Women’s Association. © 2015 Taylor & Francis

Small is small : the role and functions of small scale industries

small scale industry; small enterprises; employment; industrialization; economic growth;