UK and US should take chance to push growth
Belgian economist Paul de Grauwe argues that euro zone countries' debt crises resulted from European Central Bank policy failures. photograph: hannelore foerster/bloomberg
At the Toronto summit of the Group of 20 leading economies in June 2010, high-income countries turned to fiscal austerity. The emerging sovereign debt crises in Ireland, Greece and Portugal were one of the reasons for this. Policymakers were terrified by the risk that their countries would turn into Greece.