Austerity in developing countries too

A new paper by Isabel Ortiz and Matthew Cummins shows that austerity after 2010 has been more or less a general feature of the world economy, and not restricted to developed countries as one might think. The table below shows the changes in government spending in 2010-12 with respect to 2008-9.

As it can be seen, 56 of the 132 developing countries have moved to a contractionary fiscal stance. Note also that the contraction in spending is higher in developing countries than for high income countries. Too much austerity too soon, on a global scale.