In 2011, Portugal was subjected to one of the most stringent austerity packages implemented during the Eurozone crisis, a package known as the troika program. The interpretation of the effects of this program led to a vivid confrontation between two opposing views. A Keynesian view stressed the...

During times of economic crises, the public policy response is to abandon basic economic thinking and engage in ‘emergency economic’ policies. We explore how the current financial crisis was in part caused by previous emergency economic measures. We then investigate the theoretical...