Crisis,Austerity,and Cohesion: Europe's Stagnating Inequality

Abstract

Europe's high inequality, systematically underestimated by the European Union, has been falling for many years thanks to catch-up growth in the poorer countries and despite often-increasing inequality within member states. Crisis and austerity have curbed this development, however. After inequality rose again during the Great Recession of 2009 and the subsequent brief recovery, things are now going sideways in the context of generally weak growth.