Fiscal austerity has emerged from the debate on the euro crisis as the main strategy to restore growth and employment. Governments (and voters) considering further cuts to fiscal deficits should ask themselves an important question: where will demand come from?
Fiscal austerity promised to bring growth back to Europe by taking governments "out of the way." Unsurprisingly, it hasn't worked. Prescriptions of austerity typically fail to recognize the economy's resource constraint: demand only comes from households, businesses, government and the external sector. With households and businesses struggling with the recession, and trade expansion impossible for all countries at once, it is not clear what the expectation of growth is based on.