Unity in diversity? Varieties of capitalism before and after the euro crisis

This chapter takes stock of the institutions and institutional complementarities that underpin the two opposing growth models sketched above, explaining how they might have contributed to the build-up and subsequent asymmetric unwinding of macroeconomic imbalances. It further elaborates on whether the crisis experience has fundamentally altered institutional settings in the South of Europe and Ireland or whether measures undertaken in response to it were necessary in the circumstances but not bound to have persistent effects that have altered or will alter these countries’ growth model in the years ahead. It remains an open question whether new EU institutions and procedures such as the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP) are sufficient to prevent future imbalances in the euro area, either by promoting a process of structural convergence or by accommodating frictions across persistently divergent growth models.