The Post-Keynesian Perspective and Policy Recommendations for the Greek Financial Crisis

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to develop a post-Keynesian interpretation and viewpoint of the required policies associated with the Greek financial crisis. The Troika, inspired by the book After the Washington Consensus, and with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) acting in a leading role, embraced austerity in their disbursement of funds. The imposed conditionalities induced a deep recession, created an unfathomable challenge for Greece to meet the conditionalities year after year, and resulted in a sequence of failed adjustment programs, one after the other. Scholars, students, and policymakers of the global financial crisis and international development will benefit from these findings because the subject is of current interest and uses Greece as a case study to speak to the ongoing debates about the imposed recession as an antidote to the global financial crisis. JEL Classification: B5, E60, E65