The Theory of Crisis and the Great Recession in Spain

This book has a dual purpose. First, it analyses the concept of economic crises within economic theory, showing the various theoretical foundations and controversies amongst different schools of economic thought. Second, it presents an empirical analysis of the Great Recession in Spain, addressing the growth period of 1995 to 2007-08, the subsequent depression until 2013-14 and the recovery that followed. It also shows the way in which the inner contradictions of capital manifests itself in an European peripheral economy under a real estate bubble, emphasizing the role of the Spanish economy in European capitalism. This theoretical and empirical heterodox approach will be of interest to students and scholars in political economy, and those with an interest in the Eurozone. Front Matter ....Pages i-xvii Introduction: The Political Economy of the Spanish Crisis (Juan Pablo Mateo Tomé)....Pages 1-25 Front Matter ....Pages 27-27 The Materialist Conception of the Crisis (Juan Pablo Mateo Tomé)....Pages 29-51 Advancing in the Theory of Crisis: Social, Temporal and Geographical Dynamics (Juan Pablo Mateo Tomé)....Pages 53-78 Conventional Economics and the Theories of the Possibility of Crisis (Juan Pablo Mateo Tomé)....Pages 79-103 Front Matter ....Pages 105-105 The Fall in Profitability Underlying the Great Recession (Juan Pablo Mateo Tomé)....Pages 107-133 Construction and the Housing Boom: Analyzing the Price Effect from the Law of Value (Juan Pablo Mateo Tomé)....Pages 135-163 Why Does Profitability Fall? Paradoxes of Capital Composition and Labor Productivity (Juan Pablo Mateo Tomé)....Pages 165-193 Front Matter ....Pages 195-195 This Time It Was Also the Same: Accumulation of Imbalances and Human Failures (Juan Pablo Mateo Tomé)....Pages 197-215 Labor Market, Wages and Crisis (Juan Pablo Mateo Tomé)....Pages 217-249 Financialization and Crisis: From Low Interest Rates to a Credit Boom and Over-indebtedness (Juan Pablo Mateo Tomé)....Pages 251-282 The Way Out of Crises: From Diagnosis to a Program of Economic Policy (Juan Pablo Mateo Tomé)....Pages 283-300 Conclusions: Theory and Practice in the Analysis of the Spanish Economic Crisis (Juan Pablo Mateo Tomé)....Pages 301-312 Back Matter ....Pages 313-332 This book has a dual purpose. Firstly, it analyses the concept of economic crises within economic theory, showing the various theoretical foundations and controversies amongst different schools of economic thought. Secondly, it presents an empirical analysis of the Great Recession in Spain, addressing both the growth period from 1995 to 2007-08 and the subsequent depression until 2013-14. Using a political economy approach, the aim of this book is not to explain the root causes of the 2007-08 crisis but to demonstrate the way in which the tendency towards a crisis manifests itself in a given economy in a historical context. In other words, this book focuses upon the reasons why an issue (such as the crisis of profitability) adopts a certain form, or how it is shaped - for example, the process of capital accumulation being led by a real estate bubble. Consequently, the two divisions in this book are linked by the role of the Spanish economy in European capitalism. This theoretical and empirical heterodox approach will be of interest to students and scholars in political economy, and those with an interest in the Eurozone