Europe is in a serious crisis but that it can face up to these challenges. In Europe's Growth Challenge Anders Aslund and Simeon Djankov argue that the European Union can only be successful if it carries out substantial changes in the European economic system.
European society benefits from equality in income, excellent healthcare and basic education, good infrastructure, and developed institutions for the rule of law. But Europe has entered a period of economic stagnation and is distracted by multiple challenges. Economic and political strains have stalled vital reforms, while the threat of disunion is evident.
By focusing on what works in Europe and the great variations within Europe, Aslund and Djankov show how Europe can develop a strategy for higher economic growth. They advocate a reduction of the fiscal role of the state, an opening up of services and digital trade, an easing of the regulatory and tax burdens on labor, an improved environment for startups and innovation, pension reform, and the development of Europe's energy union.
In spite of Europe's many achievements, Europe needs to address its growth challenge to stay afloat. Aslund and Djankov provide novel insights and provocative ways forward.
Simeon Djankov, visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, was deputy prime minister and minister of finance of Bulgaria from 2009 to 2013. In this capacity, he represented his country at the Ecofin meetings of finance ministers in Brussels. Prior to his cabinet appointment, Djankov was chief economist of the finance and private sector vice presidency of the World Bank. In his 14 years at the Bank, he worked on regional trade agreements in North Africa, enterprise restructuring and privatization in transition economies, corporate governance in East Asia, and regulatory reforms around the world. He is the founder of the World Bank's Doing Business project. He is author of Inside the Euro Crisis: An Eyewitness Account (2014) and principal author of the World Development Report 2002. He is also coeditor of The Great Rebirth: Lessons from the Victory of Capitalism over Communism (2014).
Djankov is rector of the New Economic School in Russia and a visiting lecturer at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He was associate editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics from 2004 to 2009 and chairman of the Board of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 2012–13. He is also a member of the Knowledge and Advisory Council at the World Bank. He has published over 70 articles in professional journals. He obtained his doctorate in economics in 1997 from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
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