debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
In February, after months of negotiations, the European Council agreed to a new multiannual budget for the EU for 2014 to 2020. Ahead of the European Parliament’s vote on the budget, Giacomo Benedetto takes an in-depth look at how spending has changed across policy areas, finding that the largest cuts have been made to policies aimed at [...]
I like teaching Ricardian Equivalence. Ricardian Equivalence is the idea that consumers will respond to a tax cut by saving the full amount, and not spending any of it. (Here we are concerned only with the impact of the tax cut on income, and we ignore any incentive effects.) It is counterintuitive, so it makes [...]
This month the eurozone returned to recession, three years after it emerged from the deep recession of 2008-09. Paul De Grauwe argues that the current situation has been produced by policy failures at the beginning of the crisis. The best initial policy would have been for the eurozone’s creditor countries to increase spending, while the struggling periphery [...]
It is generally agreed that the crisis of 2008-2009 was caused by excessive bank lending, and that the failure to recover adequately from it stems from banks’ refusal to lend, owing to their “broken” balance sheets. A typical story, much favored by followers of Friedrich von Hayek and the Austrian School of economics, goes like [...]
Watching Mario Draghi trying to gradually out manoeuvre some of his colleagues in order to rescue the Eurozone has a certain intellectual fascination, as long as you forget the stakes involved. I’m not an expert on the rules of this game, so I’m happy to leave the blow by blow account to others, such as [...]
It has been said there is no high ground in American politics since any politician who claims it is likely to be gunned down by those firing from the trenches. That’s how the Obama team justifies its decision to endorse a super PAC that can raise and spend unlimited sums for his campaign. Baloney. Good [...]
Many nations try both: “Aust-imulus?” Few subjects have so bitterly divided our insecure times than the double-edged saber of stimulus vs. austerity. Consensus over which course will lift the current economic malaise has eluded the dueling experts. Without clearer signals of success, many nations have tried a confused mix of both – let’s call it [...]
A banner unfurled on the Leaning Tower of Pisa reads No alla riforma (of education). Portugal virtually comes to a halt as a result of a general strike that has united the bitterly divided union movement against austerity measures. British students trash the headquarters of the ruling Conservative Party in protest at budget cuts. In [...]
All Content