Kenneth Rogoff, IMF Chief Economist 2001-2003

Could an overenthusiastic commitment to austerity economics be about to throw the world back into recession? It is a question which stirs deep disagreement among top economists, but what does history tell us about the depth of the economic hole we're in? Stephen Sackur talks to Ken Rogoff, a Harvard economist who has studied 800 years' worth of financial crises and their consequences. Based on the past, how worried should we be about the immediate future?