The IMF itself admitted Eurozone fiscal multipliers were underestimated 1.5-fold

Evidence

Indeed, the IMF’s October 2012 World Economic Outlook concluded that the negative fiscal multipliers in the Eurozone had been massively underestimated such that the effect of cuts was amplified through the economy by as much as one-and-a-half times. This might go some way toward explaining quite why Southern Europe’s expansionary consolidations have been anything but expansionary. Alesina’s hour ended the moment the IMF remembered that austerity, when applied to real economies and the lives of real people, is still a very dangerous idea. — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 586

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s austerity/Matttei foundation — the IMF’s own mea culpa is a key data point on the empirics versus the ideology. — connects to: Austerity cuts raised the debt-to-GDP ratios of Eurozone crisis states. — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 30; The IMF leadership publicly praised Latvia’s austerity as a model for Europe. — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 593

Broader Connections

• Austerity cuts raised the debt-to-GDP ratios of Eurozone crisis states. #corroborates (0.82) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 30