Mon, 21 Sep, 2015 12:03:50 AM FTimes – STT Report, Sep 21 ![]() Nobel prize-winning US economist Joseph Stiglitz. File Photo – AFP / Lehtikuva. Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in Economics, criticised the country’s austerity measures and labour market reforms.
In an interview with the Finnish language newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, Stiglitz termed the country’s government policy a failure.
“The internal devaluations have not worked almost at all,” he said referring to the government plans to cut salaries to promote exports.
The Nobel laureate was taken aback by the idea that the cuts are inevitable, since the nation does not want to leave the debt burden to its grandchildren.
According to Stiglitz, on the contrary, the country robs its children when it does not make sound investments with borrowed money.
Stiglitz said he fully understands those tens of thousands who demonstrated on Friday.
“There is no mechanism through which cutting the wages of nurses would directly promote exports,” Stiglitz said, adding that the only basis is aimed at financing businesses’ tax breaks and that there is a good reason to suspect that this was a government gift to the companies.
The professor of economics at Columbia University also said that it may become necessary for the country to consider leaving the Euro currency.
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