This book has a dual purpose. Firstly, it analyses the concept of economic crises within economic theory, showing the various theoretical foundations and controversies amongst different schools of economic thought. Secondly, it presents an empirical analysis of the Great Recession in Spain, addressing both the growth period from 1995 to 2007-08 and the subsequent depression until 2013-14.Using a political economy approach, the aim of this book is not to explain the root causes of the 2007-08 crisis but to demonstrate the way in which the tendency towards a crisis manifests itself in a given economy in a historical context. In other words, this book focuses upon the reasons why an issue (such as the crisis of profitability) adopts a certain form, or how it is shaped - for example, the process of capital accumulation being led by a real estate bubble. Consequently, the two divisions in this book are linked by the role of the Spanish economy in European capitalism.

This theoretical and empirical heterodox approach will be of interest to students and scholars in political economy, and those with an interest in the Eurozone.

Auteur
Juan Pablo Mateo Tomé is currently Professor in the Department of Applied Economics, Structure and History, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. His research specialises in Political Economy, International Economics and Development Economics.

Résumé

This book has a dual purpose. First, it analyses the concept of economic crises within economic theory, showing the various theoretical foundations and controversies amongst different schools of economic thought. Second, it presents an empirical analysis of the Great Recession in Spain, addressing the growth period of 1995 to 2007-08, the subsequent depression until 2013-14 and the recovery that followed. It also shows the way in which the inner contradictions of capital manifests itself in an European peripheral economy under a real estate bubble, emphasizing the role of the Spanish economy in European capitalism.

This theoretical and empirical heterodox approach will be of interest to students and scholars in political economy, and those with an interest in the Eurozone.

Contenu
1.Introduction: The Political Economy of the Spanish CrisisPart I: Foundations of the Theory of Crisis in the Economic Thought2.The Materialist Conception of the Crisis3.Advancing in the Theory of Crisis: Social, Temporal and Geographical Dynamics4.Conventional Economics and the Theories of the Possibility of CrisisPart Ii: A Crisis of Capital Valorization. Profitability, AssetInflation and the Composition of Capital5.The Fall in Profitability Underlying the Great Recession6.Construction and the Housing Boom. Analyzing the PriceEffect From The Law of Value7.Why Does Profitability Fall? Paradoxes of Capital Composition and Labour ProductivityPart Iii: Controversies Around the Crisis: Why it Happened, What Should Be Done8.This Time It Was Also The Same: Accumulation of Imbalances and Human Failures9.Labor Market, Wages and Crisis10.Financialization and Crisis: From Low Interest Rates to a Credit Boom andOverIndebtedness11.The Way Out Of Crises. From Diagnosis to a Programme of Economic Policy12.Conclusions