Fiscal policy in the Euro area is still dominated by austerity measures implemented under the institutional setting of …

, known as austerity. In opposition to fiscal contraction measures, expansive fiscal action policies are often called for to … initiate economic recovery. But the national interests of austerity's main proponent, performed in an asymmetric … intergovernmental bargaining arena, render most of the proposed expansive action plans impossible and hence austerity is expected to …

, notably Nobel Prize winner and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who claimed that Greece suffered from austerity. Because …

Depression and World War II. The article tries to give an impression of the extraordinary degree of fiscal austerity and the …