Indeed, the IMF's October 2012 World Economic Outlook concluded that the negative fiscal multipliers in the Eurozone had been massively underestimated such that the effect of cuts was amplified through the economy by as much as one-and-a-half times. This might go some way toward explaining quite why Southern Europe's expansionary consolidations have been anything but expansionary. Alesina's hour ended the moment the IMF remembered that austerity, when applied to real economies and the lives of real people, is still a very dangerous idea.

Mark Blyth, Austerity, loc. 586