This paper provides a general framework to assess the output and debt dynamics of an economy undertaking multi-year fiscal adjustment. The framework allows country-specific assumptions about the magnitude and persistence of fiscal multipliers, hysteresis effects, and endogenous financing costs. In addition to informing macro projections, the framework can also shed light on the appropriate phasing of fiscal consolidation—in particular, on whether it should be front- or back-loaded. The framework is applied to stylized advanced and emerging economy examples. It suggests that for a highly-indebted economy undertaking large multi-year fiscal consolidation, high multipliers do not always argue against frontloaded adjustment. The case for more gradual or back-loaded adjustment is strongest when hysteresis effects are in play, but it needs to be balanced against implications for debt sustainability. Application to actual country examples tends to cast doubt on claims that very large multipliers have been operating post-crisis. It seems that the GDP forecast errors for Greece may have been due more to over-optimism on potential growth estimates than to underestimating fiscal multipliers.

The proposed SDN discusses the specific macro-critical aspects of women’s participation in the labor market and the constraints that prevent women from developing their full economic potential. Building on earlier Fund analysis, work undertaken by other organizations and academic research, the SDN presents possible policies to overcome these obstacles in different types of countries.

The macroeconomic policy response in India after the North Atlantic financial crisis (NAFC) was rapid. The overshooting of the stimulus and its gradual withdrawal sowed seeds for inflationary and BoP pressures and growth slowdown, then exacerbated by domestic policy bottlenecks and volatility in international financial markets during mid-2013. Appropriate domestic oil prices and fiscal consolidation will contribute to the recovery of private sector investment. Fiscal consolidation would also facilitate a reduction in inflation, which would moderate gold imports and favorably impact real exchange rate and current account deficit.

Despite the depth of the Greek crisis, the exorbitant burdens placed upon the working people and the massive popular resistance movement to capitalist policies, there is a definite lack of consistently Marxist analyses of the Greek problem. International debates regarding the Greek crisis have been dominated by orthodox (Neoclassical and neo-Keynesian) approaches. The heterodox side of these debates has been occupied by Radical Political Economy approaches (usually radical post-Keynesian or Marxo-Keynesian perspectives). Moreover, they are dominated by the ‘financialisation’ thesis which is quite alien to Marxism, neglects the sphere of production and professes that the global crisis is simply a financial crisis that has nothing to do with ‘real’ accumulation and the profit rate. This book argues that by emphasising the sphere of production and profitability, classical Marxist analysis better explains the Greek crisis than its orthodox and heterodox competitors. The contributors present critiques of the prevalent approaches and offer studies of the Greek crisis that use the methodology and the analytical and empirical tools of classical Marxist Political Economy. In particular, it is shown that the Greek crisis was caused by falling profitability and the ensuing overaccumulation crisis. The ‘broad unequal exchange’ existing between the euro-center and the euro-periphery contributed to Greek capital’s falling profitability. This book enriches the debate about the Greek economic crisis by demonstrating the insights that can be drawn by considering the Marxist alternative to the dominant mainstream and heterodox approaches.

This book provides a critical understanding of the causes of global poverty by international scholars from multiple disciplines. It is theoretical and empirical, dealing with both economic and non-economic aspects of poverty creation, to offer intellectual insights and political prescriptions.

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Among member states, many structural weaknesses were exposed when economic performance declined significantly and financial markets became more discerning. This book focuses on the analytical underpinnings of real-time policy advice given to euro area policymakers during four cycles of the IMF’s annual Article IV consultations (2012–15) with euro area authorities.