Project Coordinator and Principal Researcher: Dr Aikaterini Effraimia Karadimitropoulou
Duration: September 2020 - August 2022
Overview
Greece has so far failed to shift its production structure towards more complex, high value-added activities, incorporating knowledge-intensive practices. While impressive internal adjustment efforts in recent years corrected substantial imbalances, they did little to raise productivity. Despite some progress in raising exports and the manufacturing share (15% of total value added in 2018, from 11% in 2010), Greece remains weakly integrated in global value chains, with low high-tech goods exports. Research and development and research commercialisation are insufficient, as evidenced by low patenting activity. Greece lacks a systemic “activating knowledge” dimension. The necessity for such a dimension is acute, as even during the pre-crisis period, the high growth trajectory was not associated with technology, organisational and industrial upgrading.
The main objective of this project is to demonstrate the scope for an "intelligent" industrial policy for Greece, which addresses the issue of upgrading industrial activities to usher in a new growth paradigm, going beyond wage suppression, to raise productivity, climbing up the value chain and deepening capabilities within and across functions. The outbreak of COVID-19 urges a rethinking of the role of government in not simply fixing market failures, but actively shaping markets in partnership with the business sector, and highlights the risks of over-reliance on tourism, stressing the need to urgently diversify. Although boundaries between policies are porous, the research follows a two-dimensional approach consisting of horizontal policies, designed to raise productivity across sectors, and vertical policies, targeting specific industries.
Project Outputs
- The Policy Brief is available here.
- Read the Research Paper of the project, which was published as part of the GreeSE working paper series, GreeSE Paper No.193
- Read the Research Paper of the project, which has been published at the Bank of Greece Economic Bulletin, Issue 55, Article 1
Policy Paper
How to make I.T. in Greek Manufacturing: Evidence and Policy Recommendations – Sofia Anyfantaki et al., ELIAMEP, 15 December 2022
Research Team
Senior Advisor: Yannis Caloghirou, Professor Εmeritus of Economics of Technology & Industrial Strategy, National Technical University of Athens
Researcher: Sofia Anyfantaki, Research Economist, Economics Analysis & Research Department, Bank of Greece
Researcher: Konstantinos Dellis, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Economics, UoP; Teaching fellow, University of Peiraeus
Researcher: Filippos Petroulakis, Economist at the Economics Analysis & Research Department, Bank of Greece