In 1974, three families with incomes equal to the national average of their countries – one in Athens, the second in Lisbon and the third in Dublin – each had one child. The three children grew up, studied, entered the market and started their own families. Today they are middle-aged and in good health, always living in the cities where they were born, with incomes in line with the national average of their countries. However, although all three enjoy a higher standard of living than that of their parents, the standards of living between them differ significantly. The Irishman lives 3.4 times better than his parents in ’74 and the Portuguese man lives 2.3 times better than his parents. But the Greek’s standard of living is only 1.2 times that of his parents half a century ago. Why is Greece lagging behind Portugal and Ireland, also countries of the European periphery, in terms of long term development? What did they do better than us? And what useful lessons do we learn from their experience?
To these three questions, Takis Pappas‘s new book-which is also the first comparative study of Greece with other countries in the long period of post-independence-gives answers.
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