Last Monday, the Pissarides Committee presented its 244-page Growth Plan for Greece to the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
The Greek government requested the Growth Plan a year ago. The task has become more important and urgent as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the establishment of the European Recovery Fund, as the Growth Plan would provide guidelines for the use of funds.
The Committee was chaired by LSE Regius Professor and 2010 Nobel Prize Winner Christopher Pissarides. The other three members of the committee were Professors Costas Meghir (Yale), Dimitri Vayanos (LSE) and Nikos Vettas (Athens University of Economics and Business). The committee wrote the Growth Plan with the help of additional academics and other experts.
The Growth Plan contains proposals for radical reforms across many areas of the economy, such as Public Administration, Justice, Education, Taxation, Insurance, Social Welfare, Spatial Planning, Labour, Finance, Innovation and Infrastructure. If the proposals in the Plan are implemented, then Greece could achieve strong growth of 3.5% annually in the coming decade, through improvements in productivity and labour force participation.
The Growth Plan is available here. An interim version was presented to the government in the summer.
The proposals in the Growth Plan have generated a lively debate in Greece. They were influential in shaping the government’s Recovery and Resilience Plan, submitted to the European Commission for funding.
Looking ahead, the Plan can serve as a guide and benchmark for the current and future Greek governments to implement much-needed reforms to help Greece achieve its economic potential and exit for good the crisis that it has gotten into.