It's interesting to note that one of the authors of the original paper, Ken Rogan, was the chief economist at the IMF 2001-2003. He also joined the group of 30

It's interesting to note that one of the authors of the original paper, Ken Rogan, was the chief economist at the IMF 2001-2003. He also joined the group of 30 in 2008, an economic policy organization that is very influential in things like the Basel accords, IMF governance and matters of finance in Brussels. Many of these organizations rely on private data to support their policy decisions, or rely on private analysis from similar organizations. That's hard to criticize because at least some of it would cause serious harm to the folks who provided it, or enable high finance players to front run policy actions to huge profit. But what to make of an insider like that refusing to release data that had no market risk or legal restrictions in place. It's not hard to imagine that his primary goal was support of an economic philosophy and would have been just as happy to publish a paper that claimed high debt/gdp rations promote growth. It certainly makes me wonder if this kind of approach is part of the culture in some of these policy and international finance organizations. If the data relied on by the IMF/ECB/etc as they've effectively reformed governments and imposed major budget changes can't be made public, then you're highly reliant on them to be ethical and extremely diligent. If there's any significant amount of philosophy trumping science in the european restructuring, one begins to wonder if some of the weaker euro members are still actual democracies.