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Oct 23 2009, 3:15 pm by Derek Thompson
TrackBack URL for this entry:http://business.theatlantic.com/mt-42/mt-tb.cgi/16789
Thank you for this update. All your caveats are correct-- for example, Canada was much less affected by the crisis, so their relatively poor performance this year is more understandable and driven by their neighbors (and their decrease in GDP from expectations partially affected by commodity prices too).
The caveats applied back in June, though, which is why I thought your post then was a bit too hasty.
Fiscal stimulus works in a short run, but it's not clear that it's worth it in the long run, particularly if it's spent in inefficient ways. In the case of the US's stimulus in one sense we're "lucky" that the crisis was somewhat worse and longer-lasting than expected, since the stimulus wasn't really spent quickly enough-- you don't want to borrow for a short-term stimulus spent once recovery has started. OTOH, perhaps if it were spent more quickly the recovery would have started sooner. Hard to say.
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