Pathways to a universal basic pension in Greece

Chrysa Leventi and Manos Matsaganis ()
Additional contact information
Manos Matsaganis: Athens University of Economics and Business

No 1106, DEOS Working Papers from Athens University of Economics and Business

Abstract: Although basic pension had for years failed to catch the imagination of policy makers in Greece, it was suddenly brought to the agenda in the context of the severe crisis raging since November 2009. In May 2010 the government committed to a harsh austerity programme, aiming at fiscal consolidation, in return for a rescue package easing the sovereign debt crisis. The July 2010 pension reform, a key provision of the austerity programme, provided for the introduction of a near-universal basic pension from 2015. The paper attempts to explain why, paradoxically, the crisis made more realistic a universal basic pension in Greece. We argue, firstly, that social insurance pensions may be ripe for path-breaking reform if heavily subsidised in a non-transparent way, and, secondly, that any progress towards basic income is likely to be gradual, uneven and specific to the national policy context.

Keywords: Universal basic pension; Greece; economic crisis; 2010 reform (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-01-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age and nep-ias
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Forthcoming in Basic Income Studies

Downloads: (external link)
http://wpa.deos.aueb.gr/docs/Pathways_to_a_universal_basic_pension_in_Greece.pdf Revised version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Pathways to a Universal Basic Pension in Greece (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aue:wpaper:1106

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in DEOS Working Papers from Athens University of Economics and Business Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ekaterini Glynou ().