The Political Economy of the Eurozone
The Eurozone is not a mere currency area. It is also a unique polity whose actors span multiple levels (supranational, national, regional, sectoral) and pursue overlapping economic and political objectives. Current thinking on the Eurozone relies on received categories that struggle to capture these constitutive features. This book addresses this analytical deficit by proposing a new approach to the political economy of the Eurozone, which captures economic and political interdependencies across different levels of decision making and sheds light on largely unexplored problems. The book explores the opportunities afforded by the structure of the Eurozone, and lays the foundations of a political economy that poses new questions and requires new answers. It provides categories that are firmly grounded in the existing configuration of the Eurozone, but are a precondition for overcoming the status quo in analysis and policy.
Ivano Cardinale is Lecturer in Economics at Goldsmiths, University of London and Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. He was previously the Mead Research Fellow in Economics at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He is developing a research programme that can be described as Structural Political Economy. This approach represents the economy at the intermediate level of aggregation, focussing on interdependent sectors that are both economic activities and socio-political groups. It uses tools of economic analysis and social theory to explore the structure of economic interests, their political representation, and the political economy paths open to societies.
D’Maris Coffman is Senior Lecturer in Economics and Finance of the Built Environment, The Bartlett School, University College London, and Director of the Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management. She is a managing editor of Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, an associate editor of Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, and senior editor of Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance. She was previously the Mary Bateson Research Fellow in History at Newnham College, University of Cambridge, and founding director of the Centre for Financial History at Newnham and Darwin Colleges (2008–2014). Her research interests include the history of British public finance, historical fiscal sociology and the origins of modern infrastructure.
Roberto Scazzieri is Professor of Economic Analysis at the University of Bologna, Italy, and Fellow of the National Lincei Academy, Rome. He is also a Senior Member of Gonville and Caius College and a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. He is a managing editor of Structural Change and Economic Dynamics. After receiving his undergraduate education in economics and politics at Bologna, he moved to Oxford, where he carried out research leading to a D.Phil. while also working in close contact with John Hicks. He was subsequently the founding scientific director of the Bologna Institute of Advanced Study. His research deals with the theory of production, structural dynamics, framing and cognition under fundamental uncertainty, and the political economy of structural change.
