Just for my own reference: since the IMF has concluded that it loved austerity not wisely but too well, I thought I would add another austerity/growth chart to the file. Instead of using changes in structural budget balance, I thought it might be useful to just look at spending. This one uses data from the IMF’s World Economic Outlook database to compare changes in total government spending (in national currencies — I didn’t correct for inflation, but that won’t matter) with changes in real GDP; I look at advanced countries, dropping the very small ones like San Mario. The picture looks like this:
Prima facie, cutting spending depresses economies.