Signatories of the 2010 pro-austerity letter refused to admit error after Britain’s contraction

Evidence

The New Statesman had the brilliant idea of reconnecting with the twenty U.K. economists who had signed an open letter in February 14, 2010, supporting Chancellor George Osborne’s strategy of producing growth through fiscal austerity and budget cuts. Since then, Britain had promptly entered further contraction, and the Treasury ended up far exceeding its borrowing limits: so much for deficit reduction. The respondents were astoundingly mealy-mouthed, avoiding comment on their clear error (John Vickers, Kenneth Rogoff) or vaguely distancing themselves from Tory cuts by mumbling about “investments” (Roger Bootle, Danny Quah, David Newbery, Hashem Pesaran, Tim Besley); only two opted for full-throated repudiations of Keynesian stimulus (Christopher Pissarides, Albert Marcet). No mea culpas from that quarter—they thought you ditsy folks had long forgotten that inconvenient letter! — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 489

Categorization

• SHARE: Good specific example for someone tracking the empirical failure of UK austerity — the named economists who recanted or dodged.
• XREF: connects to: Pro-austerity economists refused to analyze the financial-crisis origins of state debt — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 470

Broader Connections

• Pro-austerity economists refused to analyze the financial-crisis origins of state debt #complicates (0.75) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 470