The political economy of fiscal deficits in the UK

The focus of this study is on aspects of public debt and austerity policy in the UK. It attempts to provide an evaluation of fiscal policy under neoliberalism and to consider the relationship between this policy and the macroeconomic performance of the UK economy. There also seems to be ambiguities among the policy makers about austerity. Therefore, it seems important to examine the issue of government imposed austerity policies and fiscal deficits. There is need to borrow to cover the deficits as there is no inflationary pressure in the UK. Most democratic solutions against any inflationary pressures are to reduce money in circulation through higher taxes. Further I argue that a number of counter measures could possibly be taken such as placing a requirement on financial institutions such as pension funds to place some minimum proportion of their asset portfolio into government stock. Keywords. Public Debts, Fiscal policy, Austerity, Neoliberalism.