The REBLLs’ post-communist growth was a banking crisis waiting to happen

Evidence

Despite these states constituting an astonishing example of massive fiscal retrenchment and demonstrating a robust bounce back in growth, the REBLLs do not in fact provide much evidence for the expansionary austerity thesis. To see why, we need to understand that the economies the REBLLs built for themselves after communism were accidents waiting to happen. This is why they had to be so austere in the first place—the accident happened and it cost them a fortune. It’s an accident we have already seen in this book: yet another banking crisis that ended up on states’ balance sheets. — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 594

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s central thesis that banking crises country onto state balance sheets, and to Mattei’s critique of austerity as response to financial crisis rather than sovereign profligacy. — connects to: REBLL growth was built on foreign borrowing and structurally vulnerable to external shocks — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 595; The sovereign debt crisis is a transmuted and camouflaged banking crisis — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 35

Broader Connections

• REBLL growth was built on foreign borrowing and structurally vulnerable to external shocks #expands (0.92) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 595
• The sovereign debt crisis is a transmuted and camouflaged banking crisis #corroborates (0.75) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 35