Review Essay: Austerity and Why Austerity Persists.

Austerity addresses not only public debt but also private debt now guaranteed by national governments, and austerity measures frequently extend beyond debt to include creditor protections, privatization, and welfare state cuts. In their study of comparative austerity, Shefner and Blad (4) find austerity to be "the go-to policy to resolve the "problem" of national debt." Post-2008 austerity is saved for chapter 8, and chapter 9 explores the tenacity of austerity. [Extracted from the article]