A picture speaks a thousand words

Here’s what the ‘austerity’ and ‘stimulus’ scenarios will look like in practice (simulated at the level of the Euro area). Austerity will kill growth and jobs and the consequence will be that public debt ratios will continue to shoot up. Under ‘stimulus’ however (three years of a 1% of GDP investment stimulus), public debt gradually will be brought back under control, while millions of new jobs will be created.