Monday, June 22, 2015

Greece Has Made Tough Choices. Now It's the IMF's Turn

By James K. Galbraith

The International Monetary Fund's chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, recently asked a simple and important question: "How much of an adjustment has to be made by Greece, how much has to be made by its official creditors?" But that raises two more questions: How much of an adjustment has Greece already made? And have its creditors given anything at all?

In May 2010, the Greek government agreed to a fiscal adjustment equal to 16 percent of GDP from 2010 to 2013. As a result, Greece moved from a primary budget deficit (which excludes interest payments on debt) of more than 10 percent of GDP to a primary balance last year -- by far the largest such reversal in post-crisis Europe.

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