For a pdf version of the paper, containing the relevant figures, please click here.
What follows is an outline of the
Greek sovereign debt crisis from a perspective that is certainly not mainstream
- at least not in the sense of what every major political, economic, and media
outlet loves to hate nowadays. For my interpretation as to how the crisis came
about will be neither structural nor cultural. Of course, national economies do
grow or decline because of social and economic substructures, political
institutions, and cultural traits. Yet, these refer to long-term processes whereas
serious sovereign debt crises usually evolve over relatively short (often too
short) periods of time. Sovereign bankruptcies, much like those of large
private companies, occur because three unfortunately too human factors are allowed
to carry the day in the highest echelons of strategic decision-making. These
are irresponsible greed, incompetence, and irrationality (a term which many a
time is meant more as an euphemism for stupidity).
