Austerity and the Economy: Spending Cuts Versus Tax Increases
The Annual Jack Mintz Lecture with Alberto Alesina, Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University
In the wake of Alberta and Ontario’s recent austerity measures, there has been a great deal of discussion on methods to reign-in government spending and reduce debt. The C.D. Howe Institute invites you to join us on February 12th for a Roundtable Luncheon with Alberto Alesina, Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University, who will be assessing the consequences of different types of austerity on the economy.
The C.D. Howe Institute established the Annual Jack Mintz Lecture in honour of Dr. Jack Mintz’s outstanding achievements in the field of fiscal and tax policy.
Alberto Alesina, Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy, Harvard University
Alberto Alesina, born in Italy in 1957, is the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University. He obtained his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1986. He served as Chairman of the Department of Economics from 2003 - 2006. He is a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Center for Economic Policy Research. He is a member of the Econometric Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the director of the political economy program of the NBER since 2006.
He is has published extensively in all major academic journals in economics. He has published five books. Amongst those are: The Future of Europe: Reform or Decline, published by MIT Press, with Francesco Giavazzi and Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe: A World of Difference, published by Oxford University Press, with Edward Glaeser. He has been a Co-editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics for six years and Associate Editor of many academic journals. He has published columns in many leading newspapers around the world and has visited several institutions including MIT, Tel Aviv University, University of Stockholm, The World Bank, and the IMF. He holds a visting position with IGIER Bocconi.
His work has covered a variety of topics: political business cycles, the political economy of fiscal policy and budget deficits, the process of European integration, stabilization policies in high inflation countries, the determination of the size of countries, currency unions, the political economic determinants of redistributive policies, differences in the welfare state in the US and Europe and, more generally, differences in the economic system in the US and Europe, the effect of alternative electoral systems on economic policies, and the determination of the choice of different electoral systems, culture and economics, ethnic conflict, inequality and redistributive policies, and the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy.
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