In 2010, two Harvard economists published an academic paper that spoke to the world’s biggest policy question: should we cut public spending to control the deficit or use the state to rekindle economic growth? Growth in a Time of Debt by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff has served as an important intellectual bulwark in support of austerity policies in the US and Europe. It has been cited by politicians ranging from Paul Ryan, the US congressman, to George Osborne, the UK chancellor. But we have shown that several critical findings advanced in this paper are wrong. So do we need to rethink austerity economics more broadly?
2010年，哈佛大學(Harvard)的兩位經濟學家發表了一篇有關全球最大政策問題的學術論文，這個問題是：我們是應削減公共支出以控制赤字，還是應利用政府來重啓經濟成長？卡門•萊因哈特(Carmen Reinhart)和肯尼思•羅戈夫(Kenneth Rogoff)合著的《債務時代的成長》(Growth in a Time of Debt)一直是支撐歐美緊縮政策的重要學術依據。這篇論文被很多政界人士引用過，從美國國會議員保羅•瑞安(Paul Ryan)、到英國財政大臣喬治•奧斯本(George Osborne)。但我們已證明，這篇論文中得出的幾項關鍵結論是錯誤的。因此，我們是否需要擴大視角、重新思考緊縮經濟學？