ABSTRACT
This chapter aims at highlighting similarities, differences and interactions between the two processes of globalization and Europeanization. It reviews the interpretations of the factors leading to the decline of growth and the rise of financialization, and how the heterodox and orthodox theories have explained the 'secular stagnation'. The chapter presents how these global changes, and specifically the process of financialization, have been transferred to the countries of the periphery. The US neoliberal model, intermediated by the European construction, institutions and norms, shaped in conformity with the German model, has modelled the structure and affected the functioning of their economies, substantially weakening their resilience. Various factors combined to favour growth, among these the undisputed socio-economic, technological and military hegemony of the United States, the presence of a large pool of unemployed labour in the European countries engaged in post-war reconstruction, the availability of cheap and stable energy supply. Two engines sustained the growth process, according to the sequence: investment-income-imports.
