More economists are now criticising the British government’s fiscal rules – including those who influenced their design

Labour 's new Chancellor has inherited a set of fiscal rules inherited by the Labour government.

Some of the economists who wrote to the Financial Times criticising the rules are prominent in the design of the rules.

They claim that if Reeves continues to operate according to the fiscal rule it will cut public investment expenditure significantly and undermine prosperity.

John Maynard Keynes did not consider economic growth in his essentially short-term model of output and employment.

But there were economists working in the so-called Keynesian’ tradition that developed models of economic growth, which emphasised the importance of private saving and capital expenditure.

Harrod considered investment expenditure to be largely driven by expectations of future movements in aggregate expenditure (GDP).

William Mitchell says the rules on public spending are a recipe for disaster.

He argues that public spending must always be chasing the expansion of the demand-side (expenditure) and the growth in productive capacity can always be interrupted leading to instability usually a failure to achieve full employment.

Reeves is banking on strong private sector expenditure growth driving GDP ahead of expansion of public debt.