Hostname: page-component-669899f699-g7b4s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-24T10:51:32.688Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Social Policy Responses to Rising Inflation in Southern Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 March 2024

Amílcar Moreira Open the ORCID record for Amílcar Moreira [Opens in a new window] ,
Antonios Roumpakis Open the ORCID record for Antonios Roumpakis [Opens in a new window] ,
Flavia Coda Moscarola Open the ORCID record for Flavia Coda Moscarola [Opens in a new window]  and
Olga Cantó
Amílcar Moreira*
Affiliation:
School of Economics and Management, CSG/SOCIUS, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
Antonios Roumpakis
Affiliation:
School for Business and Society, University of York, York, UK
Flavia Coda Moscarola
Affiliation:
DIGSPES, Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale, Alessandria, Italy CeRP-Collegio Carlo Alberto, Turin, Italy
Olga Cantó
Affiliation:
Universidad de Alcalá, Alcala de Henares, Spain
*
Corresponding author: Amílcar Moreira; Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

As they were just coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, Southern European nations were confronted with a new shock to their economies – this time in the form of a steep rise in prices. This article describes and typifies the social policy responses and measures adopted in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain in response to rising inflation. We find that Southern European (SE) governments have put forward a substantive fiscal response – which compares well with that of its neighbours, and even with the previous crisis. The thrust of the response was targeted at limiting the pass-through of international energy prices to consumers. This was complemented, albeit to a lesser degree, with direct support to families. Nevertheless, we do find important differences concerning the weight given to (traditional) welfare transfers, and the role given to indexation mechanisms and wage increases. We also find important continuities with the model of crisis-response adopted during the pandemic.

Keywords

Inflationcost-of-livingsouthern Europesocial policywelfare state
Type
Themed Section on Social Policy Responses to the Cost-of-Living-Crisis
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 23 , Issue 1: THEMED SECTION: Social Policy Responses to the Cost-of-Living-Crisis , January 2024 , pp. 224 - 239
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Afonso, A. (2015) ‘Choosing whom to betray: populist right-wing parties, welfare state reforms and the trade-off between office and votes’, European Political Science Review, 7, 2, 271–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Almeida, V., Barrios, S., Christl, M., De Poli, S., Tumino, A. and van der Wielen, W. (2021) ‘The impact of COVID-19 on households´ income in the EU’, Journal of Economic Inequality, 19, 413–431.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Autoridad Independiente de Responsabilidad Fiscal (AIREF) (2022) ‘Informe sobre los proyectos y líneas fundamentales de los Presupuestos de las Administraciones Públicas 2023: Comunidades Autónomas y Corporaciones Locales’, Informe 52/22, https://www.airef.es/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/LINEAS_FUNDAMENTALES/Informe-Plan-Presupuestario-2023_web_.pdf Google Scholar
Badenes Plá, N. (2023) ‘Análisis distributivo de medidas adoptadas en 2022 para paliar los efectos de la guerra de Ucrania’, Papeles de Trabajo – Instituto de Estudios Fiscales, Serie Economía, 1/2023, https://www.ief.es/docs/destacados/publicaciones/papeles_trabajo/2023_01.pdf Google Scholar
Béland, D. (2019) ‘Varieties of social policy by other means: lessons for comparative welfare state research’, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 21, 3, 306–311.Google Scholar
Béland, D., Cantillon, B., Hick, R., Greve, B. and Moreira, A. (2023) ‘Policy legacies, welfare regimes, and social policy responses to COVID- 19 in Europe’, in Börner, S. and Seeleib-Kaiser, M. (eds.), European Social Policy and the COVID- 19 Pandemic, New York: Oxford University Press, 3–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Béland, D., Cantillon, B., Hick, R. and Moreira, A. (2021) ‘Social policy in the face of a global pandemic: policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis’, Social Policy & Administration, 55, 249–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bella, E. and Favero, L. (2022) ‘Chi ha beneficiato dei pacchetti di sostegno a famiglie e imprese erogati da settembre 2021 a oggi?’, Osservatorio sui Conti Pubblici Italiani, https://osservatoriocpi.unicatt.it/ocpi-Sostegni%20a%20imprese%20e%20famiglie.pdf Google Scholar
Comissão Permanente da Segurança Social (CPCS) (2022) ‘Acordo de Médio Prazo de Melhoria de Rendimentos, dos Salários e da Competitividade’, Lisboa: Comissão Permanente da Segurança Social, https://www.portugal.gov.pt/pt/gc23/comunicacao/documento?i=acordo-de-medio-prazo-para-a-melhoria-dos-rendimentos-dos-salarios-e-da-competitividade Google Scholar
Curci, N., Savegnago, M., Zevi, G. and Zizza, R. (2022) ‘The redistributive effects of inflation: a microsimulation analysis for Italy’, Banca d’Italia Occasional Paper No. 738, https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/qef/2022-0738/index.html?com.dotmarketing.htmlpage.language=1&dotcache=refresh&dotcache=refresh CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De la Porte, C. and Heins, E. (2022). ‘Introduction: EU constraints and opportunities in the COVID-19 pandemic: the politics of NGEU: the politics of NGEU’, Comparative European Politics, 20, 2, 135–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
European Commission (EC) (2022) Economic Economic Forecast: Greece, https://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/forecasts/2022/spring/ecfin_forecast_spring_2022_el_en.pdf Google Scholar
Eurostat (2023a) HICP – monthly data (annual rate of change) [PRC_HICP_MANR__custom_4931696] [last update: 01.02.2023, data extracted 13.02.2023].Google Scholar
Eurostat (2023b) Quarterly GDP and main components (output, expenditure and income) [NAMQ_10_GDP_custom_4934834] [last update 02.02.2023, accessed 13.02.2023].Google Scholar
Eurostat (2023c), General government gross debt – annual data [TEINA225__custom_4944964], last update: 21/10/2022 [accessed 14.02.2023].Google Scholar
Fernandes, J. M., Magalhães, P. C. and Santana-Pereira, J. (2018) ‘Portugal’s leftist government: from sick man to poster boy?’, South European Society and Politics, 23, 4, 503–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferrera, M. (1996) ‘The ‘Southern Model’ of welfare in SE’, Journal of European Social Policy, 6, 17–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferrera, M. (2021) ‘The South European countries’, in Béland, D., Leibfried, S., Morgan, K. J., Obinger, H. and Pierson, C. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State, New York: Oxford University Press, 844–862.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
García-Miralles, E. (2023) ‘Support measures in the face of the energy crisis and the rise in inflation: an analysis of the cost and distributional effects of some of the measures rolled out based on their degree of targeting’, Economic Bulleting, Bank of Spain 2023/Q1, https://www.bde.es/f/webbde/SES/Secciones/Publicaciones/InformesBoletinesRevistas/BoletinEconomico/23/T1/Files/be2301-art15e.pdf CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Immervoll, H. (2005) ‘Falling Up the stairs: the effects of “bracket creep” on household incomes’, Review of Income and Wealth, 51, 37–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ministério das Finanças (Ministry of Finance) (2022) ‘Stability Programme 2022-26’, Lisboa: Ministério das Finanças, https://commission.europa.eu/content/2022-european-semester-national-reform-programmes-and-stabilityconvergence-programmes_en Google Scholar
Ministero della Transizione Ecologica (Ministry of Ecological Transition) (2022) ‘La Situazione Energetica Nazionale Nel 2021’, https://dgsaie.mise.gov.it/situazione-energetica-nazionale [accessed 21.07.2022]Google Scholar
Moreira, A., Léon, M., Coda Moscarola, F. and Roumpakis, A. (2021) ‘In the eye of the storm…again! Social policy responses to COVID-19 in Southern Europe’, Social Policy & Administration, 55, 339–357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Papadopoulos, T. and Roumpakis, A. (2020) ‘Southern Europe’, in Ellison, N. and Haux, T. (eds.), Handbook on Society and Social Policy, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, 182–195.Google Scholar
Petmesidou, M., and Guillén, A. M. (2021) ‘South Europe: reclaiming welfare post-crisis?’, in Greve, B. (ed.), Handbook on Austerity, Populism and the Welfare State, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 186–206.Google Scholar
Pierros, C. and Theodoropoulou, S. (2023) ‘Inflation and counter-inflationary policy measures: The case of Greece’, Düsseldorf: IMK, https://www.boeckler.de/en/faust-detail.htm?sync_id=HBS-008479 Google Scholar
Pontusson, J. and Raess, D. (2012) ‘How (and Why) is this time different? the politics of economic crisis in Western Europe and the United States’, Annual Review of Political Science, 15, 1, 13–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramiro, L., and Gomez, R. (2017) ‘Radical-left populism during the great recession: Podemos and its competition with the established radical left’, Political Studies, 65(1_suppl), 108–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romer, C. (2021) ‘The Fiscal Policy Response to the Pandemic’, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Spring, 89–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saraceno, C. (1997) ‘Family change, family policies and the restructuring of welfare’, in OECD (ed.), Family, Market and Community: Equity and Efficiency in Social Policy (Social Policy Studies no. 21), Paris: OECD, 81–100.Google Scholar
Sgaravatti, G., Tagliapletra, S., Trasi, C. and Zachmann, G.(2021) ‘National policies to shield consumers from rising energy prices’, Bruegel Datasets, https://www.bruegel.org/dataset/national-policies-shield-consumers-rising-energy-prices [accessed 13.02.2023]Google Scholar
Ufficio Parlamentare di Bilancio (UPB) (2022) ‘Gli effetti distributivi dell’aumento dei prezzi e delle misure di sostegno in favore delle famiglie’, Flash n.º 2/2022, https://www.upbilancio.it/pubblicato-il-flash-n-2-2022-gli-effetti-distributivi-dellaumento-dei-prezzi-e-delle-misure-di-sostegno-in-favore-delle-famiglie/ Google Scholar
Uxó, J. (2022) ‘Inflation and counter-inflationary policy measures: the case of Spain’, Düsseldorf: IMK, https://www.boeckler.de/en/faust-detail.htm?sync_id=HBS-008483 Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Moreira et al. supplementary material

Moreira et al. supplementary material
Download Moreira et al. supplementary material(File)
File 26.7 KB