Varieties of Capitalism and Responses to the Financial Crisis: the European Social Model versus the US Model

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to show how European Union (EU), which employs different varieties of capitalism, and US, which operates based on a competitive capitalist model, are coping with the current economic crisis. Although EU is fragmented and needs to work towards better and deeper integration among member states, the main features of the European Social Model (ESM) allows for a more sustainable recovery and lessens the social costs. A new index was developed in this paper: the Synthetic Vulnerability Index; which shows that the US position is worse than the Eurozone position in terms of recovery from the current crisis and of exposure to further crises. Nevertheless, current financial reforms, both in the US and EU seem to be insufficient and the recent fiscal austerity measures seem to be moving the economies in the wrong direction.Financial crisis, Varieties of capitalism, EU social model