IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hel/greese/212.html

The café economy: Structural transformation in Greece in the wake of austerity and “reforms”

Author

Listed:
  • Michalis Nikiforos
  • Vlassis Missos
  • Christos Pierros
  • Nikolaos Rodousakis

Abstract

This paper investigates the structural transformation of the Greek economy over the past fifteen years, focusing on the increasing dominance of the Accommodation and Food Service Activities (AFSA) sector in the aftermath of austerity and structural reforms. Despite promises of productivity gains through labor market and product market reforms, the Greek economy has experienced a sharp decline in labor productivity and a significant reallocation of employment towards low-productivity sectors, especially AFSA, reminiscent of a Lewis-type dual sector economy. Using a simple Panel-VAR model we find that declining aggregate demand and real wages were key drivers of this productivity collapse. Our findings support theories of technological change that emphasize output growth and the cost of labor as fundamental determinants of productivity growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Michalis Nikiforos & Vlassis Missos & Christos Pierros & Nikolaos Rodousakis, 2025. "The café economy: Structural transformation in Greece in the wake of austerity and “reforms”," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 212, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    • Handle: RePEc:hel:greese:212
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.lse.ac.uk/Hellenic-Observatory/Assets/Documents/Publications/GreeSE-Papers/GreeSE-No212.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alogoskoufis, George, 2023. "The twin deficits, monetary instability and debt crises in the history of modern Greece," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 120344, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alogoskoufis, George, 2024. "Before and after the political transition of 1974: institutions, politics, and the economy of post-war Greece," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 124056, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Spyros Economides, 2024. "Konstantinos Karamanlis and Leadership in Foreign Policy," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 195, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    3. Mamatzakis, Emmanuel C., 2024. "High Greek bank net interest margins, recapitalisations and competition," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 124476, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Emmanuel C Mamatzakis, 2024. "High Greek Bank Net Interest Margins, Recapitalisations and Competition," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 199, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents
    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy
    • J5 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
    • Z30 - Other Special Topics - - Tourism Economics - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hel:greese:212. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Vassilis Monastiriotis (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.