Spending cutbacks ‘short-sighted’

NOBEL Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has said that Government cutbacks are hindering Irish and European recovery and could lead to “a longer- term Japanese-style malaise of weak growth”.

The author of Freefall said Europe’s cutback culture could push it back into recession. He specifically criticised the Irish goal of returning to a deficit of 3% of GDP by 2014.

“I think that is a kind of short-sighted behaviour that makes no economic sense,” Joseph Stiglitz told listeners to Morning Ireland on RTÉ Radio 1 yesterday.