Authors: Dimitrios Giakoulas, Leonidas Vatikiotis

Title: The calm between two crises: an assessment of the macroeconomic environment of the Greek economy before the outbreak of the covid pandemic

Abstract

Our research is focused on the macroeconomic developments of the Greek economy that took place during the 2016-2019 period which is after the end of the financial crisis and before the outbreak of the covid pandemic, which is probably introducing us into a new economic crisis.

After the ten-year crisis, the economy has returned to positive growth rates, but the structural problem of the sluggishness of domestic investments remains. However, the competitiveness of the Greek economy, seems to be gradually improving and there has been a constant rise of the stock of foreign investments, which has now exceeded the pre-crisis levels. If this trend continues, it may be able to partially offset the negative effects of the low level of domestic investment. Our research concludes with an analysis of key structural indices focusing on Greek small and medium-sized enterprises. Τhe economy’s growth is also reflected on these indices but we also find another rising trend which is the increase in the number of employees and the respective decrease in the number of the self-employed.