Greece: perpetual crisis as a new normalcy

The sovereign-debt crisis in Greece and the profound economic recession that followed and led to a nearly 25% drop in the GDP level over the period 2009-2015 have turned Greece into an ample case of failed economic adjustment programmes and crippling modernisation. As a variety of domestic and external factors have contributed to that, economic and social hardships notwithstanding life goes on in Greece. As economic analysis suggests that Greece entered a perpetual crisis, the Greek society and so the Greek business sector were forced to adapt to what has become a new normalcy defining the Greek reality. Two interesting questions may be thus posed: (i) how the perception of crisis in Greece evolved over the time-span of the past 6 years, (ii) what are the main mechanisms that drove that evolution; and (iii) to which extent and to which avail the perception of the crisis as an incontestable part of reality has influenced the behaviours of citizens, consumers and businesses? The objective of this paper is to address this question.