Austeridade excessiva na UE?

The recovery from the global financial crisis of 2008-09, and the associated recessions in many countries, has been incredibly weak. Both academic economists and policymakers—Larry Summers, most notably—have raised the possibility that this period of low growth might not be a temporary phenomenon and, instead, could represent the beginning of a new era of secular stagnation. This describes a scenario where low growth, inflation, investment and interest rates become the norm, driven by a permanent excess of savings over investment. Secular stagnation is certainly a risk for many countries, and the conditions for it to take hold are appearing in more and more countries. It is, however, a perfectly avoidable fate and something that can be headed off with some pretty well-understood policies, such as reforms to encourage foreign direct investment and better social safety nets in the emerging world. The risks from secular stagnation are not so much economic, but political. Secular stagnation is much more likely to be the result of poor policy choices, such as the excessive pursuit of austerity in the EU, than economic fundamentals. Simon Baptist, The Economist