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Connecting comparative political economy (CPE) approaches, as the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) theory, with post-Keynesian (PK) research on different demand and growth regimes in modern capitalism has recently given rise to some interesting claims regarding differentiation and shifts of demand and growth regimes. However, we find some difficulties in the way PK approaches have been interpreted and integrated in modern CPE approaches. Therefore, we first provide a theoretically consistent and empirically applicable classification of demand and growth regimes under the conditions of finance-dominated capitalism, as it recently has been proposed by PK authors. Second, instead of using the traditional VoC dual classification, we focus on a more differentiated welfare model classification, which can be seen as different socio-institutional responses towards the challenges of globalisation and financialisation. For the period before the 2007-9 crisis, we link the PK demand and growth regimes with five socio-economic models identified by Hay and Wincott (2012), and thus provide an alternative approach. Third, going beyond the current debate, we examine the regime shifts after the 2007-9 global crisis with respect to the demand and growth regimes, and we also examine the changes within the welfare models. Whereas we find a clear pattern for the shift of demand and growth regimes, the changes in the welfare models are not as clear-cut. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops an analytical approach to comparative political economy that focuses on the relative importance of different components of aggregate demand—in the first instance, exports and household consumption—and dynamic relations among the “demand drivers” of growth. We illustrate this approach by comparing patterns of economic growth in Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom over the period 1994–2007. Our discussion emphasizes that export-led growth and consumption-led growth have different implications for distributive conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]