Economic restructuring, crises and the regions: the political economy of regional inequalities in Greece

摘要

In the debate concerning a country’s structural weaknesses there is anudobvious neglect of space issues, an important component of which is regionaludimbalances. Yet, the persistence of such imbalances within countries hasuddictated the continuous investigation of their causes and of the requiredudpolicy reforms for their reduction. Structural changes, economic integrationudon a global or regional scale and economic crises have been considered majorudfactors for increasing or decreasing domestic regional concentration anduddisparities, while economic policy can mitigate (or strengthen) their effect.udThis paper attempts to examine and critically evaluate the above issues for theudcase of Greece, where regional inequalities, measured by per capita GDP, haveudwidened over time consolidating the country’s polarized structure and whereudrestrictive macroeconomic measures as well as regional policy implementedudthrough the Community Support Frameworks appear to have beenudinadequate in most cases or even to have intensified the above picture. Auddiscussion of future prospects under Greece’s current difficult situation isudattempted in the conclusions.