We are getting used to a constant flow of depressing macroeconomic data. On January the 31st Eurostat released the latest news on unemployment: in December 2011 10.4% of the working population in the Euro Area was looking for a job. This value, that is the highest since 1999, is even worse for young workers: the youth unemployment in the Euro Area is 21.3%, with an Italian peak of 31%.[1]
Just a week earlier, the January update of the IMF World Economic
Outlook[2] forecast a stagnant year for European economies, with
recessions in Italy and Spain (-2.2% and -1.7%, relative to 2011) and
stagnant Germany and France (0.6% and 0.5%). These latest data confirmed
a downward trend on European growth expectations: while in April 2011
expected 2012 GDP growth in the Euro Area was +1.8%, each subsequent
update of the World Economic Outlook was worse, till the last update:
2012 Euro Area’s GDP will decrease by 0.1%.
Was that a surprise? Not really. Plunging gross domestic products are
the result of the austerity measures that European Governments were
planning and approving during 2011 (as we predicted in August[3]). The
more governments reduced their purchases, the lower the 2012 GDP. The
lessons taken from 1929 and, more recently, the Japanese lost decade,
were simply ignored.
Scritto da Intervista a Fabio Sdogati, sull'Unità del 7 gennaio
domenica 08 gennaio 2012
«Ho letto la proposta dell'Antitrust sulle liberalizzazioni, certo. Interessante... ma sono le cose di cui si discute da anni. Tutto giusto,
condivisibile, eppure se non interveniamo con una politica europea di
crescita non andiamo da nessuna parte perché per le liberalizzazioni
servono anni e una concertazione seria con le categorie interessate e
noi non possiamo permetterci di aspettare». L'economista Fabio Sdogati
va cauto. E aggiunge: «Un anno fa dissi che sarebbe arrivata una
recessione sanguinosa e oggi sono convinto che non durerà sei mesi, come
sostiene l'Ocse, ma un intero anno».
Economies and Fiscal Policies at the time of
the Great Recession .pdf
Fabio Sdogati: “A description of the main ideas and facts behind the strategies being adopted as a way out of the crisis.”
The debate between
the so-called Keynesian and anti-Keynesians is still looking for a definitive
resolution. On the one hand, Keynesians such as Krugman [1] and Stiglitz [2] argue for
further fiscal stimulus. On the other, anti-Keynesians such as Taylor [3] and Greenspan [4]
argue for a reduction in governments’ spending and a rebalancing of their
fiscal position. Institutions are also involved in the debate: some, such as
the International Monetary Fund [5] [6]and the Federal Reserve [7], argue that this
is not the right time to cut governments’ deficits, since recovery is still far
from being strong, and that fiscal consolidation should be pursued only later
in the future; others, such as the Bank for International Settlement [8] and partly the
European Central Bank [9] and [10], appear to be more
worried about governments’ deficits and thus call for immediate fiscal
tightening.
.pdf
