A Turn to Export-Led Growth? Rethinking the Growth Models in Greece and Portugal

Abstract

The global financial crisis in 2007 and, more recently, the Covid-19 pandemic renewed interest in capitalist divergence and the evolution of growth models in the Eurozone. The varieties of capitalism (VoC) approach and more recently post-Keynesian research, especially the growth model (GM) perspective, have made important contributions to comparative political economy. However, the focus on either the ‘supply-side’ or ‘demand-side’ aspects of modern models of capitalism has offered a limited framework to explain capitalist diversity in the global economy. This article brings insights from both the VoC and GM perspectives and provides a more comprehensive understanding of the evolution of the growth models in Greece and Portugal. The argument is that although both countries implemented internal devaluation and contractionary policies to curtail domestic demand and transform their economies into export-led ones, they have been stuck in a suppressed demand-led growth model since the global financial crisis.