Revista de Economie Mondiala/ Journal of Global Economics

1-27

Authors: Iulia Monica Oehler-Șincai

The process of public sector restructuring, known in the economic literature as the New Public Management (NPM), came to a deadlock as the global financial and economic crisis broke out in 2008. The expansion of cheap credit, market dereglementation and asset securitization, speculative bubbles, the mixture of euphoria, greed and even naivety and ignorance of the economic players outlined an international financial system which was not subordinated any more to the real economy, but to the own principles, similar to Ponzi schemes or casino rules (Posner, 2011, Kindleberger and Aliber, 2011, Rajan, 2010, Stiglitz, 2010, Roubini and Mihm, 2010). All these generated, at global level, the deepest recession after the Great Depression. The anti-crisis measures came without delay, but they did not produce the expected results. At the Euro Zone level, an almost immediate and direct effect of the crisis and the accompanying countercyclical fiscal measures was that of enhancing the fiscal burden for governments. The levels of fiscal deficit and the public debt as percentages of GDP substantially increased and, gradually, another crisis broke out: the Euro Zone sovereign debt crisis. As a result, at the level of the EU governance, in order for the authorities to be able to improve it, there were adopted distinct strategies, programs and instruments. In spite of the converging efforts at the EU as well as national levels, the majority of the countries in the Euro Zone were not able to find the right formula of restarting economic growth. The present analysis brings to the forefront Spain’s experience, which represents a clear example of governance (and NPM) failure, as neither the countercyclical measures adopted for the recovery, in accordance with the keynesyan principles, nor the austerity packages that followed them were not able to induce the economic growth, so essential for diminishing unemployment.

45-82

Authors: Maria Cartas

The branch of industry remains a major activity within an economy, ensuring the necessary technical and technological basis for the development of all other activities such as agriculture, constructions, transportation and, more than that, it has the main contribution to the GNP, trade, employment, generating value added and new jobs, as well as increasing competitiveness and economic and social progress for the nation. To successfully fullfill its role, industrial development needs adequate industrial policies capable to coagulate the public and private enterprises energies into an unique innovative effort aimed at a better use of resources as well as an effective industrial structural adjustment able to promote increasing competitivenes at all levels. Though a controversial subject, because of its several failures along the history, industrial policy becomes more and more actual. Many countries - developed, rapidly increasing emergent economies, as well as poorer countries are reconsidering the role of industrial policy. Western scholars reveal the fact that, after decades of denying the need for it, the World Bank itself is now recomending that developping countries should implement industrial policies.