Abstract
We develop a microfounded macroeconomic model that embeds the key features of the Greek economy. After calibrating the model to Greek data over 1995–2019, we assume that the economy is initially in the year 2019 and then quantify the adverse economic impact of the lockdown measures taken to control the spread of the pandemic, as well as the implications of the various policy measures (at national and EU level) taken to cushion the impact of the economic hit. We give quantitative answers to questions like: What will be the size and duration of the economic downturn? What are the implications of the national fiscal stimulus? What will be the role of the fiscal transfers coming from the European Recovery Fund? Our results imply that the national fiscal stimulus package adopted so far is helpful but, for the Greek economy to enter an era of sustainable growth, a mix of policies is also needed that combines: (i) a growth-enhancing fiscal mix (ii) product market deregulation (iii) a socially productive use of the resources coming from the Recovery Fund.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the editor and two anonymous referees for constructive criticisms and suggestions. We have benefited from discussions and joint work with K. Angelopoulos, T. Christou, V. Dimakopoulou and P. Kammas. G. Economides and A. Philippopoulos are grateful to the Hellenic Observatory of the LSE for financial support of a project on Economic growth in Greece: Barriers and prospects to which this paper belongs (we specifically acknowledge the support of The A. C. Laskaridis Charitable Foundation (ACLCF), Dr Vassili G. Apostolopoulos and the LSE). Any views and errors are our own.
Appendix A: Macroeconomic System
Collecting all equations, the system that we solve numerically consists of the following equations:
A.1 Households (the Three Types)
A.2 Price Indexes
A.3 Private Firms in a Symmetric Equilibrium
where
A.4 State Firms
A.5 Government Budget Constraint
where we use
A.6 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Identity
where
A.7 Balance of Payments (Economy’s Resource Constraint)
A.8 Tax Revenues
A.9 Exports
A.10 Fiscal Variables
A.11 Country’s Interest Rate
A.12 Market-Clearing Conditions in Labor and Dividend Markets
A.13 Endogenous and Exogenous Variables
We therefore have a dynamic system of 43 equations, (S1)–(S43), in 43 variables. The latter are the paths of
A.14 Transformed Variables
For convenience, we re-express some variables. We define
Appendix B: Measure of Welfare Comparisons
Say there are two regimes, the pre-COVID and the COVID one, denoted respectively by superscripts P and C. Then, we solve for a consumption subsidy, ξ, which (as in the literature) remains constant over time and (for simplicity) is common across households, such that the households are indifferent between the two regimes. In other words, ξ solves (recall that public good provision is common across households):
In our solutions, we work with T = 6. Also, for the pre-COVID regime, we use the values of the year 2019 repeatedly for all 6 periods, while, for the COVID period, we use the simulated time paths under scenario S0, S1 and S2.
Appendix C: Adding Firm Entry and (De)regulation Product Market Policy
Let us define two new variables,
Both
where the parameter 0 ≤ Ω < 1 is the exogenous death rate, V
t
denotes the value of the firm (this is the present discounted value of the firm’s profits starting from the current period onwards) and
The above equations are consistent with the following sequence of events: At the start of the period, new entrants,
The firm’s profit (which is net of the entry cost, F t , paid by the new entrants and which is expressed in domestic prices) changes to:
whereas the GDP identity changes to:
namely, the entry cost is assumed to take the form of a resource cost (we have also experimented with the case in which the entry cost plays a distributive role in the sense that it becomes a revenue for the government (licences, etc.); the main results are not affected).
We therefore have a dynamic system of 45 equations, (S1)–(S24), (S26)–(S28), (S30)–(S43), plus (C1)–(C4), in 45 variables. The latter are
About new parameter values: The death rate is set at 5%. In the departing solution of the year 2019, the value of the entry cost, F
t
, is chosen/calibrated such that the new model’s solution for the fraction of producing firms,
The path of the number of firms under scenario S0, S1, S2 and S4 is shown in Figure A.1. As can be seen, the implementation of product market reforms, under S4, increases substantially the number of producing firms enhancing product market competition which, in turn, amplifies the multiplier impact of the fiscal stimulus under S2 (see the red dotted line in Figure 4 in the main text).

Economic impact of the lockdown under S0, S1, S2 and S4.
(% deviation of the number of private firms from its 2019 value).
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