Abstract
The Spanish debt crisis was caused by a housing bubble triggered by the 2008 financial crisis. In 2008, Spain enjoyed prosperity, had a budget surplus and a flourishing tourist industry. Spain tried first to stimulate the economy but failed, in part, because of a loss in consumer confidence, bank failures and declining tourism. An austerity plan was then implemented. This caused a recession that lasted six years, increased unemployment from less than 10% in 2007 to 30% in 2013, increased youth unemployment from 17% to 55%, forced the poorest 10% to lose 13% of their real incomes each year between 2007 and 2011, and also raised the debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio from 36% in 2007 to 117% in 2017, from $470 to $1460 billion.
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Notes
- 1.
Lee Tunstall , Spain ’s Current Economic Pain Nothing New, the Huffingtonpost, March 12, 2013.
- 2.
Lisa Tripp , Greece the only villain in euro crisis? Don’t believe it, CNN, March 24, 2015.
- 3.
Bershidsky , Two Points for Austerity: Spain and Ireland, Bloomberg, July 31, 2015.
- 4.
Uxó and Álvarez , Is the end of fiscal austerity feasible in Spain?, Research Gate, February, 2016.
- 5.
Steven Hill , To Hell and Back: Spain’s Grotesque Recession and Its Surprising New Economy, The Atlantic, October, 2013.
- 6.
David Rosnick and Mark Weisbort, Has austerity worked in Spain?, Center for Economic and Policy Research, December 19, 2015.
- 7.
Ibid., Lisa Tripp.
- 8.
Ibid., Steven Hill .
- 9.
Paul Gambles , Spain: the bell is tolling on austerity bus is anyone listening? Linkedin.com, August 28, 2015.
- 10.
See: United States Government Debt to GDP, Trading Economics, http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp and Spain’s Public Debt Reaches 100.9% Of GDP, The Spain Report, August 17, 2016. https://www.thespainreport.com/articles/847-160817122440-spain-s-public-debt-reaches-100-9-of-gdp
- 11.
Ibid., Gambles .
- 12.
Sergio Tirado Herrero and Luis Jimenez Meneses , Energy poverty, crisis and austerity in Spain, People, Place and Policy, (2016): 10/1, p. 42, April 20, 2016.
- 13.
Ibid., Herrero and Meneses Energy poverty, crisis and austerity in Spain, People, Place and Policy.
- 14.
Wikipedia, Economy of Spain.
- 15.
Zachary Woolfe , Now onstage in Spain: Austerity, the New York Times, February 15, 2015.
- 16.
Uxo and Alvarez , Is the end of fiscal austerity feasible in Spain? P. 7.
- 17.
Wikipedia, 2008–16 Spanish financial crisis.
- 18.
Ibid., Steven Hill.
- 19.
Rosnick and Weisbort, Has austerity worked in Spain?, Center for Economic and Policy Research, December 19, 2015.
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
Paul Krugman , the austerity delusion, the Guardian, April 29, 2015.
- 22.
Brad Plumer , IMF: Austerity is much worse for the economy than we thought, Wonkblog, the Washington Post, October 12, 2012.
- 23.
Ibid., Krugman .
- 24.
Tim Worstall , Krugman ’s right: Spain’s austerity proves that it’s the euro that is the problem, Forbes, September 14, 2015.
- 25.
Conn Hallinan , From Brexit in the UK to Austerity in Spain, Europe is on the Edge, Foreign Policy in Focus, July 7, 2016.
- 26.
- 27.
See, Mohamed Rabie , A Theory of Sustainable Sociocultural and Economic Development, Chapters 2 and 3, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
- 28.
Gap widens between Spain’s rich and poor, the Local, May 21, 2015.
- 29.
Ibid., Rosnick and Weisbort.
- 30.
Christoph Pauly , Spain emerges as model for Europe , Spiegel Online, March 25, 2015.
- 31.
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Rabie, M. (2018). The Spanish Austerity. In: The Global Debt Crisis and Its Socioeconomic Implications. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66215-2_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66215-2_11
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