Staff research projects

Dr Afroditi Koulaxi and Dr Maria-Christina Vogkli (Hellenic Observatory Research Associates) will be working on a project funded by the LSE Urgency Grant Scheme.
The research project delves into the immediate aftermath of Storm Daniel in Greece’s Thessaly region, focusing on its profound impact on citizenship, information poverty, and governance amidst a multifaceted climate-driven crisis that turned displaced citizens into refugees in their own country. Storm Daniel's aftermath resulted in severe consequences: internal displacement, loss of life, property damage, and ecological devastation. The crisis reshaped Greece's citizenship paradigm, exacerbating pre-existing inequalities (related to class, ethnicity, ability, and access to information) and vulnerabilities. The project aims to give voice to affected individuals, shaping the discourse on citizen-refugeeness, socio-spatial disparities, and crisis-driven internal displacement. 

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Dr Georgios Kazamias (Visiting Senior Fellow January 2024 - June 2024) ,will research the background behind the formation of colonial economic policy, its continuities and its breaks, in the 19^th C. colonial context. Thus decisions specific to Cyprus and their motives will be placed in the context of wider colonial economic policy and in the specifics related to the possession of (later, colony) of Cyprus.  Dr Kazamias intends to research primary documents as well as secondary sources and publications on the above, in the supportive academic atmosphere of the Hellenic Observatory.

Professor Gerasimos Tsourapas during his stay at LSE (Visiting Professor January 2024 - July 2024) will collect data on a research project entitled ‘Geopolitics and Migration Interdependence in Greek-Turkish Relations.’ The project involves a longitudinal analysis of migration and refugee crises between Greece and Türkiye, from the 1923 population exchange until the 2020 border crisis. It identifies how the two states’ complex history on matters of cross-border population mobility has produced reciprocal political economy effects, or migration interdependence. Athens and Ankara have attempted to manipulate migration interdependence in their bilateral and multilateral bargaining strategies using both coercive and cooperative issue-linkage strategies. Focusing on four critical junctures in the modern history of Greece and Türkiye, the project identifies the ways in which mixed migration dynamics produce specific spillover effects that serve states’ (geo)political purposes.

Dr Athanasia Chalari (Senior Visiting Fellow October 2023 - September 2024) will work on 'Transforming from “European Citizen” to “International Immigrant” identity after Brexit: The case of Greek Diaspora in the UK' during her visit. One of the aftermaths of Brexit, has affected those UK residents who had been classified as ‘EU citizens’ prior Brexit, and re-classified as ‘International Immigrants’ after Brexit. Such unique reclassification of identity, deserves further exploration in its own right and as this project shall argue, entail the engagement with the exploration of the ideas of Britishness and non-Britishness in terms of ethnic, national, citizenship and immigration identity as well as nativism. Dr Chalari argues that the example of Greek diaspora in UK may shed light in the meaning making of this identity transition, as a case of ‘EU citizenship’ identity transforming to ‘International Immigrant’ identity.   

Professor Vassilis Monastiriotis will be a Visiting Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Macedonia (Greece) for the Academic Year 2023/24. During his fellowship will be working on the project titled “Analysis of managers’ hiring intentions for mid-career employees in Greece: remuneration profiles and attitudes to brain repatriation”, in collaboration with Dr Rebekka Christopoulou (University of Macedonia) and Dr Ioannis Laliotis (University of Peloponnese).

Professor Kevin Featherstone published articles in two major journals: (with Spyros Economides & Tom Hunter) ‘The Changing Discourses of EU Enlargement: A Longitudinal Analysis of National Parliamentary Debates’, Journal of Common Market Studies; and (with Dimitris Papadimitriou) ‘When do Crises Centralise Decision-Making? The core executive in the Greek economic crisis’, Journal of European Public Policy.  He is currently writing a new book (with D. Papadimitriou) on ‘Prime Ministers in a Crisis’, examining crisis management within the Greek ‘core executive’ from 2009 to 2018 (for Oxford University Press, 2024).

Dr Spyros Economides’ research on Greece focuses on his interest in foreign policy. He is writing an article entitled ‘Greek Foreign policy in an era of “permacrisis”’ (with Alexandros Zachariades). His chapter on ‘Greece and the End of the Cold War’ will appear in the Oxford Handbook on Modern Greek History. He is also working on a piece examining ‘Konstantinos Karamanlis: leadership and foreign policy’. He has recently published (with Kevin Featherstone and Tom Hunter) an article entitled ‘The Changing Discourses of EU Enlargement: A Longitudinal Analysis of National Parliamentary Debates’ in the Journal of Common Market Studies. His interest in EU foreign policy is also reflected in his other recent publication, ‘European Foreign Policy and The Role of Member States: Europeanisation or Renationalisation?’ which appeared in the latest edition of International Relations and the European Union (Oxford University Press). He is currently embarking on a major research project on ‘Geopolitics, Values and the Re-emergence of “the West”, which reassesses the meaning of the term, ‘the West’ in the context of the war in Ukraine.

Dr Vassilis Monastiriotis’ research revolves around the themes of labour market performance, regional growth, public investment and economic development. His latest publications include a paper examining the role of public investment in mobilising private investment in emerging Europe (Eastern European Economics, with S. Randjelovic), which provided evidence for a synergetic relationship (crowd-in effect) both in the long- and in the short-run, with the short-run effect significantly mediated by a country’s degree of capital market integration; and a paper in Health Economics (with I. Laliotis and G. Moscelli) which, leveraging on data from Greeceand state-of-the-art counterfactual techniques, showed a significant influence of ambient light conditions on serious car accidents, thus highlighting the benefits that better ambient light conditions could have on overall road safety. His current work focuses on regional growth accelerations (presentations at the 2003 RSA and ERSA conferences) and on the growth and investment effects of Cohesion policy at the intensive and extensive margins (presentation at the 3rd Joint EU Cohesion conference of the European Commission).

Dr Theodoros Arvanitopoulos' research lies at the intersection of energy demand and supply dynamics, and examines the contribution of economic growth and technological innovation on climate change mitigation. He will focus both on the macro level – assessing economics sectors and innovation processes – and the micro level – investigating interconnections between local conditions and climate change mitigation. Dr Arvanitopoulos is particularly interested in understanding the dynamics of energy security and climate change mitigation in South-East Europe, and more specifically in Greece. Focusing on Greece, he has examined the role of geographical and socio-economic characteristics on regional synchronicity in economic growth trajectories at the prefectural level. To investigate his research questions, Dr Arvanitopoulos predominantly employs quantitative methods and mathematical models. These tools allows him to derive meaningful insights and draw robust conclusions. Recognizing the policy relevance of his work, he has actively consulted and engaged in research projects for the European Commission, the UK Government, the UK Climate Change Committee, and the OECD. 

Dr Philipp Katsinas (Visiting Fellow Septemper 2022 - September 2024) will continue to work on his research on political imaginaries of happiness in Greece. After the end of economic adjustment programmes, the newly elected Greek government of Nea Dimokratia, attempted to promote a new vision for the country, based on the notion of happiness, as something that Greece can provide to its citizens and to visitors. As Nea Dimokratia is going to rule the country for another four years, given its recent electoral landslide victory, he will focus on the further implementation on the happiness discourse. This project contributes to research on happiness as a place-branding strategy in economic geography, and on the happiness imaginary in Greece.

Professor Anthony Bartzokas (Visiting Professor in Practice, March 2021 - February 2024) will focus on the political economy of sudden stops and macroeconomic adjustment: the case of Greece. The Greek economy went through a steep recession for ten years at the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007-2007. It started as a unique episode of a sovereign debt crisis in a monetary union that triggered a banking sector crisis and a sequence of adjustment programmes aiming at macroeconomic stabilization and economic recovery. A proliferation of articles, books and official publications is already available addressing two aspects of the Greek predicament in the last ten years. The emphasis has been either on what caused the crisis or on the modalities of crisis management and guiding principles for adjustment. This project takes a different perspective. We start with an evidence-based assessment on what happened during the trajectory from crisis to recovery with an emphasis on corporate sector adjustment. Next, we incorporate our empirical insights to an explanatory framework of what drives the adjustment process during a special case of deep recessions under constrained policy options. We draw on the international experience of recessions and recovery trajectories, including the specific case of internal devaluation in monetary unions. The consideration of a case of prolonged recession points to two factors for deeper consideration, i.e. investment capacity and firm level response to reforms. There is extensive literature on reforms sequencing and relevant growth and welfare implications during economic transition. We enrich this debate in two directions. First, we apply the concept of binding constraints as the guiding principle for the design of the direction of reforms. Second, we introduce six qualities of market conditions for the calibration of the proposed reforms agenda. Finally, we propose an empirical approach on recovery growth drivers that builds on modern growth theory. In our view, structural adjustment in Greece so far has addressed the problem of unsustainable flows and going forward is supposed to address persistent issues of stocks in the economy. Thus, we argue that a comprehensive analysis of recovery drivers is needed addressing coordination failures and middle-income traps.

Greek Industry: post Covid-19 challenges, presentation at a Workshop organised by the Region of Western Greece on 'Entrepreneurship Towards the 4th Industrial Revolution', 31/3/2021