We are pleased that ‘The Economic Consequences of Mr. Osborne’ (which you can link to here) has attracted attention and comment from a wide range of economic and political analysts.
The Royal Economic Society in its latest (July 2010) newsletter (not yet online, but expected to be soon) refers favourably to our paper in an article that discusses the views of a range of economic dissidents, including the LSE’s Director of the Centre for Economic Performance, John Van Reenen and Joseph Stiglitz. The article notes that while opposition to Osborne’s Budget is growing, “even so, the lack of comment by economists…about its overall macroeconomic impact remains striking.”
The paper has also attracted the attention of American economists and historians, notably Marshall Auerback of the Roosevelt Institute in a piece for the Huffington Post and on the New Deal 2.0 site: ‘The trouble with Tim’s Treasury.’ Also Richard Smith, in a critique of Niall Ferguson’s imperialist economics on ‘Naked Capitalism’, here.
Finally we won high praise from Mehdi Hassan political commentator at the New Statesman, in a piece entitled ‘I am proud to be a deficit denier’.
And I’m proud to be in their company.
I am a new visitor to your site and I have found your articles and comments very instructive.I respect those who challenge the herd instinct! I have read your piece on the economic consequences of Mr Osborne’s proposed consolidation.I am not an economist as you may detect from my comments. I have three points :-
1. It would be interesting to know what conditions were operating in the sovereign debt and credit markets in each of the historical events you have analysed – had there been anything akin to a global credit freeze in any of these events and who were they key providers of sovereign debt at the relevant times
2. What levels of private debt accompanied the ratios of public debt you analyse. In any of the previous episodes, was the level of private indebtedness as high as it is today.
3. Alistair Darling accepted he had little scope for fiscal expansion and let the BoE do the heavy lifting with monetary boosts via cutting interest rates to near zero and buying government debt. In the absence of direct incentives to private business to expand at a time when credit is effectively frozen, do you think monetary policy/QE can substitute for government spending boosts.
Thanks