The Global Economics of European Populism: Growth Regimes and Party System Change in Europe: Mark Blyth and Jonathan Hopkin
鈥淓uropean Integration and the Political Economy of Bad Ideas鈥�
Mark Blyth
Department of Political Science, Brown University
September 28, 2017 鈥� 3:00 p.m. to 4:25 p.m.
Leacock 429, 缅北强奸
ABSTRACT
Why do bad policy ideas persist over time? This talk traces the development of the euro鈥檚 governing ideas over fiscal and monetary policy in the face of mounting evidence that continued adherence to those ideas was economically deleterious. We argue that a specific form of social learning, framed by a retrospective recoding in 2010鈥�2012 of Europe鈥檚 experience with fiscal rules in 2003鈥�2005, drove European elites to pursue policies that were economically irrational but politically rational. As a result, the Eurozone鈥檚 medium-term resilience has been made possible by the European Central Bank鈥檚 unconventional and loose monetary policies, which operate in direct opposition to the tight fiscal policies of its member states鈥� governments. We maintain that this self-defeating macroeconomic policy mix will continue as long as the lessons learned by policymakers are driven by the need to win what we term an authority contest, rather than provide better macroeconomic outcomes.