The Show Must Go On: The Political and Economic Responses of the United Kingdom and Germany to the 2008 Crisis

Identifier

26

Author

Nicholas Patrick Mastron

Date

2014

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Major

Political Science

Committee Chair

Matthias Kaelberer

Committee Member

Douglas Campbell

Abstract

The 2008 Financial Crisis indicated that economics alone could not explain the entirety of the crisis or the governments' policy responses to the crisis. The general consensus is that specific policy choices by the various state actors aided or hindered the economic development and the response to this crisis. However, this analysis explores how specific national political, economic, and social structures shape the policy responses. This argument holds true in the case of the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany in their responses to the 2008 Crisis. By using the analytical perspective of "varieties of capitalism," his paper evaluates the formation of responses and their efficacies. Germany, as the example of a coordinated market economy, has a greater number of intra-state actors that affect the viability of the policy response; whereas, the United Kingdom, as the case of a liberal market economy, allows for flexibility within its domestic market to better adjust to economic shocks. Analysis shows that the coordinated better protected from long-term economic shocks, and the liberal market model represents a better solution to short-term economic setbacks.

Comments

Undergraduate Honor's Thesis

Library Comment

Honors thesis originally submitted to the Local University of Memphis Honor’s Thesis Repository.

Recommended Citation

Mastron, Nicholas Patrick, "The Show Must Go On: The Political and Economic Responses of the United Kingdom and Germany to the 2008 Crisis" (2014). Honors Theses. 18.
https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/honors_theses/18