Whatever happened to prudence?

As the energy shock intensified earlier this year, the IMF dished out its standard advice on how countries should respond if they wanted to offset the pain for their households and companies. Any support should be timely, targeted and temporary, it said. Nations did respond quickly, with nearly 900 measures implemented to offset the shock across 170 countries at the latest count in mid-June. But the measures were broad-brush, had no end date and subsidised energy — undermining the incentive to conserve fuel in the middle of an energy shock. They will be difficult to reverse. This year’s energy subsidies signify more than countries being unwilling to heed IMF advice. They are just the latest example in a growing international trend to fix problems with additional government borrowing and leave the resulting higher deficits and debt for future governments to manage. This has been standard practice in the US since the 1990s. French politics has long found it impossible to rein in high def

As the energy shock intensified earlier this year, the IMF dished out its standard advice on how countries should respond if they wanted to offset the pain for their households and companies. Any support should be timely, targeted and temporary, it said. Nations did respond quickly, with nearly 900 measures implemented to offset the shock across 170 countries at the latest count in mid-June. But the measures were broad-brush, had no end date and subsidised energy — undermining the incentive to conserve fuel in the middle of an energy shock. They will be difficult to reverse. This year’s energy