In focusing on summit declarations and promises of far reaching reforms of EU institutions, investors are missing the real risk the collapse of public support for, or at least public acquiescence to, the austerity policies required to work down heavy debt burdens and for the governments pursuing these policies. Mass anti austerity protests are one warning sign.

91. Impact of austerity measures.

37. Impact of austerity measures.

51. Impact of austerity measures.

After Austerity

NEW YORK The outcome of the Italian elections should send a clear message to Europe s leaders the austerity policies that they have pursued are being rejected by voters.

Europe s Austerity Zombies

The Austerity Pandemic

Clarity about Austerity

Misconceiving British Austerity

Austerity and Demoralization

End Austerity Now

101. Austerity measures.

Greece and the Limits of Anti Austerity

The Greek Austerity Myth

Asia s Take on Austerity

Austerity and Debt Realism

Europe s Irrelevant Austerity Debate

87. 1997 austerity measures.

Even Germany s GDP declined in quarterly terms in the first half of the year. Finland, a staunch supporter of firm austerity policies, is in negative territory for the first half of the year.

A Green Alternative to Austerity?

Fiscal Austerity Versus European Society

Austerity Is Not Greece s Problem

Austerity and the Modern Banker

Austerity Politics, Then and Now

Does Austerity Promote Economic Growth?

Learning About Growth from Austerity

Ireland and the Austerity Debate

Austerity Is the Only Deal Breaker

A. Austerity is not the answer

11. Five years of austerity measures had taken their toll.

But, again, it s not about the money. It s about using deadlines to force Greece to knuckle under, and to accept the unacceptable not only austerity measures, but other regressive and punitive policies.

Europe s past was equally present in the realm of economics in 2014. Thanks to the European Union s austerity policies, the eurozone faces the prospect of a Japan style era of stagnation, and chronic high unemployment on its southern fringe.

We are once again learning the hard way that this kind of austerity, when applied in the teeth of a major financial crisis, leads only to depression. This insight should have been common knowledge it was, after all, a major lesson of the austerity policies of President Herbert Hoover in the United States and Chancellor Heinrich Brüning in Weimar Germany in the early 1930 s.

105. Austerity and cost reduction measures in 1998.

Syriza s economic program rejects the austerity policies supported or, some might say, imposed by the so called troika (the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission). These policies require Greece to maintain a very high primary budget surplus more than 4 of GDP for many years to come.

The truth is that a country s past failures do not influence investors if its current institutions and economic policies are sound. That was clearly the case when Osborne and his colleagues opted for austerity.

After five years of decline in living standards, voters oppose more austerity and further retrenchment without growth. Restoring a sound euro requires policies that revive growth, rein in government spending, and reform heavily regulated labor and product markets.

If you think austerity will solve everything, you're wrong.

Three points should be borne in mind in the light of that austerity.

a The decrease is the result of austerity measures introduced in August 1997.

The February 1997 austerity measures reduced 1997 allocations in many of the same budget lines in which the June 1996 austerity measures had reduced 1996 allocations, but were even more extensive.

On this foundation of zombie economics and slipshod research rests the case for austerity. In fact, the austerity boosters in the UK and Europe frequently cited the Alesina and Reinhart Rogoff findings.

The right policies less fiscal austerity in the short run, more public investment spending, and less reliance on monetary easing are the opposite of those that have been pursued by the world s major economies. No wonder global growth keeps on disappointing.

Many inside and outside of Germany declare that both austerity and more growth are needed, and that more emphasis on growth does not mean any decrease in austerity. The drama of the ongoing eurozone crisis has focused attention on Europe, but how the austerity growth debate plays out there is more broadly relevant, including for the United States.