During the 1930s and 1940s, and again in the 1970s and 1980s, most European nations, indeed most industrial nations, undertook major changes in macroeconomic policy orientation and financial regulation. The contributors to this volume, historians, political scientists, and economists, identify the forces which drove these major policy shifts, and explore their implications for other areas of economic and social policy.

Can Italy and Germany thrive within the confines of the common currency, or do they display two fundamentally incompatible models? This book examines this question by means of detailed comparisons in the fields of labour market policies, welfare provisions and financial and economic management, since the onset of the financial crisis and through the euro and COVID-19 crises. The rapid succession of the financial crisis, the Eurozone crisis and COVID-19 have again brought to the fore questions that have beset European integration since its inception; does the EU promote convergence or divergence? Have these crises served to reveal pre-existing politico-economic incompatibilities or were these incompatibilities created by the euro and the measures propounded by the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)? Should EMU recipes be followed, or should they be fundamentally revised in an effort to come good on the convergence promises underpinning the European project? And, lastly, is the COVID-19 crisis likely to mitigate or exacerbate these problems? These questions are addressed in this volume by means of a tight comparison between Germany and Italy, two countries that have displayed strikingly divergent trajectories but also share many more politico-economic traits than the conventional wisdom would allow for. By exploring in detail how the main elements of the euro and EMU management have played out, the volume highlights the externalities that becoming part of a currency union has created and that strengthened the economic success of one while consolidating the decline of the other and analyses the likely impact of the measures introduced to fight the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, German Politics.

Since the late 1960s social democrats have become the dominant political force in the European Union. In fact, Social Democrats govern in no less than 11 of the 15 member states. Simultaneously, the EU has embarked on its most far-reaching project yet, namely Economic and Monetary Union (EMU); a project that was designed mainly by non-Social Democratic governments. This volume provides the first in-depth and comparative analysis of the views and policies of nine European Social Democratic parties concerning economic governance under Europe's new single currency and of the impact of the new political and institutional constellation in the EU on the process of economic integration and European social democracy.

Money, Markets, and the State, first published in 2000, provides in-depth explanations behind the various successes and failures of the economic policies of social democratic governments in five Western European countries: Germany, Great Britain, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands. Dr Notermans examines these economic systems from the inflation of the early twenties, through the Great Depression of the thirties and then continues his analysis up to present-day mass unemployment. Drawing on a wide range of historical and statistical sources, Dr Notermans argues that the fate of social democratic economic policy hinges critically on the political and institutional success of maintaining price stability and not on structural economic factors such as changing supply side conditions or increasing globalization of economic relations. Although social democracy has repeatedly been declared obsolete, the study concludes that even under present economic conditions, successful policies for full employment are possible by way of social democratic theory.

Money, Markets, and the State provides in-depth explanations behind the various successes and failures of the economic policies of social democratic governments in five Western European countries: Germany, Great Britain, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands. Dr. Notermans examines these economic systems from the inflation of the early twenties, through the Great Depression of the thirties, and then continues his analysis up to present-day mass unemployment. Drawing on a wide range of historical and statistical sources, Dr. Notermans argues that the fate of social democratic economic policy hinges critically on the political and institutional success of maintaining price stability.