 EU TYPE OF AUSTERITY: BRIEF ANALYSIS AND CRITICISMGlobal Economic Observer, 2014, vol. 2, issue 2, 85-92 Abstract: Although it has become a common place to blame austerity policies for lengthening the economic downturn of EU economies, the figures reveal that public spending increased in most of the EU countries between 2007 and 2013. Although budget deficits from EU countries were indeed reduced in the last 4 years, the cutbacks were more the result of increasing government revenues and hiking taxes than of decreasing public expenditures. The article will feature: (1) a brief analysis of the evolution of public spending compared to government revenues in EU countries and also, (2) a concise literature review on austerity, highlighting some of the most important theoretical controversies on this topic. The main thesis defended in the article is that – although EU type of austerity, narrowly focusing on fiscal consolidation, drove indeed to unfavorable economic consequences – the criticism formulated by pro stimulus economists is rather flimsy, given the fact that public expenditures actually increased in most of the EU countries. Keywords: austerity; EU economies; public spending; government revenues; taxes; budget deficit; economic crisis; fiscal stimulus (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ntu:ntugeo:vol2-iss2-14-085 Access Statistics for this article Global Economic Observer is currently edited by Serghei Margulescu and Simona Moagar-Poladian More articles in Global Economic Observer from "Nicolae Titulescu" University of Bucharest, Faculty of Economic Sciences Contact information at EDIRC., Institute for World Economy of the Romanian Academy |
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