Ioannis Vavouras

Public Sector Deficits: Their Economic and Policy Determinants in the Case of Greece

Abstract The basic objective of the study is to investigate the main economic and policy variables that affect the growth of public deficits in the case of Greece. We prove that economic conditions have played a stabilizing role in general, while contrary to what is widely believed, policy variables seem to have been the most important factors determining the growth of public deficits. We argue, for the first time in the case of Greece, that the creation of political-fiscal cycles, which is the result of clientelist politics in Greece, is the major factor contributing to public deficit growth. Breaking therefore the political-fiscal cycles is a prerequisite of any effective policy regarding the reduction of public deficits in the long-run.

Mediterranean Countries and Corruption: Political, Economic, and Social Factors

The authors propose a classification of the perceived corruption levels of Mediterranean countries according to key political, economic, and social factors. While relevant empirical research has shown the extent of corruption in various countries by analyzing differences in their respective values on a corruption perceptions index, the variables used here include additional data such as gross national income per person in purchasing power parities, a political rights index, a civil liberties index, and a nonincome human development index. Although northern Mediterranean countries are distinguished from Arab and Balkan countries, the labels developed and developing countries in the Mediterranean seem too simplistic when describing the marked heterogeneity within these two groups. The lack of homogeneity can be attributed to institutional and cultural country- specific factors rather than to crude differences in levels of economic development. This suggests that policies against corruption should target a complex ensemble of driving factors not limited to the economic characteristics of an individual country and should include social political, cultural, institutional, and territorial considerations.

Socioeconomic and Political Dimensions of Development Worldwide

The scope of this paper is to examine the main economic, social and political dimensions of development worldwide. More specifically, our analysis focuses on the study of the links between the levels of income per capita, the level of perceived corruption, the degree of human development, the extent of government effectiveness and the quality of the political system as the main variables describing the level of overall development in a country. As we expected, we find that all these factors are very important determinants of the scale of overall development, since combinations of these factors according to their values determine clusters of countries with different patterns of overall development. As a result, an effective policy towards development demands integrated strategies that incorporate efforts for low corruption and high income, human development and government effectiveness levels. However, in order these strategies to be sustainable in the long run they should be associated with democratic transformations. If democracy is not consolidated and the political system is not characterized as free, overall development cannot be effectively achieved and especially maintained at the long run basis, in spite of any currently prevailing high income levels.