(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.)
By Lawrence Summers
May 4 (Reuters) - The British economy has experienced the most rapid growth in the G7 over the last few months. It increased at an annual rate of more than 3 percent in the last quarter - even as the U.S. economy barely grew, continental Europe remained in the doldrums and Japan struggled to maintain momentum in the face of a major new valued added tax increase.
Many have seized on Britain's strong performance as vindication of the austerity policy that Britain has followed since 2010, and evidence against the secular stagnation idea that lack of demand is a medium-term constraint on growth in the industrial world.
Interpreting the British strategy correctly is crucial because of the political stakes in Britain, the question of future British economic policy and, most important, because the British experience influences economic policy debates around the globe. Unfortunately, when properly interpreted, the British experience refutes the austerity advocates and confirms John Maynard Keynes's warning about the dangers of indiscriminate budget cutting during an economic downturn.
Start with the British economy's current situation. While growth has been rapid recently, this is only because of the depth of the hole that Britain dug for itself. While the U.S. gross domestic product is now well above its pre-crisis peak, in Britain GDP remains below previous peak levels and even short of levels predicted when austerity policies were implemented. Not surprisingly given this dismal record, the debt to GDP ratio is now nearly 10 percentage points higher than forecast, and the date when budget balance is predicted has been pushed back to the end of the decade.
The common excuse offered for Britain's poor performance is its dependence on financial services. Yet the New York metropolitan area, far more dependent on financial services than Britain, has seen GDP comfortably outstrip its previous peak. Though the euro area has performed poorly, even a casual look at trade statistics confirms that this cannot account for most of Britain's poor growth.
The U.S. economy grew at a rate of 9 percent for a number of years after the trough of the Great Depression in 1933. Such rapid growth in peacetime is unheard of in U.S. history. Why did it happen? Only because of the depth of the Depression. No one has ever taken the pace of the U.S. recovery from the Great Depression as any validation of the austerity policies that helped create it. Similarly, part of the story of British growth is that it is simply catching up after a major crisis caused a huge output gap to develop.