debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
The UK is learning that contractionary fiscal policy is contractionary. A new study United Kingdom Outlook Update – Getting Dimmer – September 19 2011 by Roubini Global Economics shows the UK economy remaining depressed throughout the remainder of this and the coming year. It has downgraded its forecasts for real GDP growth to just 1.1% [...]
Two new papers clearly show that contractionary fiscal policy is indeed contractionary. Coming from the IMF and from an economist who had previously co-authored a paper often cited by those claiming that fiscal contractions could, in contrast, be expansionary, they are going to be hard to shake off. The bottom line is that all those [...]
Various eminent economists – amongst them, Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz and Robert Skidelsky[i] – have attacked ‘deficit hysteria’ as based on weak economic evidence and poor theory; i.e. as being ‘economically illiterate’. The right-wing of the profession – not just in Britain but in Frankfurt and Washington – has struck back, digging hard into the [...]
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