The economist Kenneth Rogoff has defended British officials' embrace of austerity following the global financial crisis, using historical cases to demonstrate that the UK’s credit performance has been far from credible. But investors look past a country’s previous failures if its current institutions and economic policies are sound.
LONDON – Was the British government’s decision to embrace austerity in the wake of the global financial crisis the right policy, after all? Yes, claims the economist Kenneth Rogoff in a much-discussed recent commentary. Rogoff argues that while, in hindsight, the government should have borrowed more, at the time there was a real danger that Britain would go the way of Greece. So Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne turns out, on this view, to be a hero of global finance.
To show that there was a real threat of capital flight, Rogoff uses historical cases to demonstrate that the United Kingdom’s credit performance has been far from credible. He mentions the 1932 default on its World War I debt owed to the United States, the debts accumulated after World War II, and the UK’s “serial dependence on International Monetary Fund bailouts from the mid-1950’s until the mid-1970’s.”
What Rogoff’s analysis lacks is the context in which these supposed offenses were committed. The 1932 default on Britain’s WWI loans from America remains the largest blemish on the UK’s debt history, but the background is crucial. The world emerged from the Great War in the shadow of a mountain of debt that the victorious Allies owed to one another (the US being the only net creditor), and by the losers to the victors. John Maynard Keynes predicted accurately that all of these debts would end up in default.
LONDON – Was the British government’s decision to embrace austerity in the wake of the global financial crisis the right policy, after all? Yes, claims the economist Kenneth Rogoff in a much-discussed recent commentary. Rogoff argues that while, in hindsight, the government should have borrowed more, at the time there was a real danger that Britain would go the way of Greece. So Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne turns out, on this view, to be a hero of global finance.
To show that there was a real threat of capital flight, Rogoff uses historical cases to demonstrate that the United Kingdom’s credit performance has been far from credible. He mentions the 1932 default on its World War I debt owed to the United States, the debts accumulated after World War II, and the UK’s “serial dependence on International Monetary Fund bailouts from the mid-1950’s until the mid-1970’s.”
What Rogoff’s analysis lacks is the context in which these supposed offenses were committed. The 1932 default on Britain’s WWI loans from America remains the largest blemish on the UK’s debt history, but the background is crucial. The world emerged from the Great War in the shadow of a mountain of debt that the victorious Allies owed to one another (the US being the only net creditor), and by the losers to the victors. John Maynard Keynes predicted accurately that all of these debts would end up in default.