After the Crisis reassesses the twin projects of structural reform and European integration in the wake of the Great Recession and the European Sovereign Debt Crisis.
The introduction compares the pre-crises debate to the current situation, and highlights a number of ways in which both reform and further integration may have become more difficult. Chapter 1
surveys the state of the structural-reform agenda, its successes, failures, and priorities for further action. The second chapter focuses on the fiscal-policy response to the crisis and
advocates a greater balance between supply-side reforms and demand-side management. The third chapter focuses on the asymmetric shocks across economies in the monetary union, and discusses
institutional mechanisms to reduce their frequency and impact. Chapter 4 examines the cyclical behavior of output and financial indicators, as well as the counter-cyclical role of
macro-financial policies, both at the national and the European level. The fifth chapter studies changes in Europeans’ attitudes, showing how the recent crises have eroded public confidence in
European institutions. The sixth chapter tackles the demographic challenges facing Europe, and particularly the way that demographic change may impact the reform agenda. Chapter 7 highlights
the under-appreciated extent to which ’Europe’, taken as a whole, is characterized by a substantial amount of inequality and geographical income clustering, and the challenge this poses for
further integration.
