Marcus Eberhardt talks to Viv Davies about his recent research with Andrea Presbitero that analyses the links between debt and growth by using data on total public debt for 105 economies between 1972 and 2009 and two centuries of data for the UK, US, Sweden and Japan. The authors conclude that there is no convincing proof that austerity works and that it is dangerous for policy makers to pretend otherwise. The interview was recorded in April 2014 at the annual conference of the Royal Economic Society.

Eberhardt,  M. 2013. ‘Nonlinearities in the Relationship between Debt and Growth: Evidence from Co-Summability Testing‘. CFCM Working Paper 13/06

Eberhardt, M. and Presbitero, A. 2013. ‘This Time They’re Different: Heterogeneity and Nonlinearity in the Analysis of Debt and Growth‘. CFCM Working Paper 13/10