The government must shoulder the responsibility for Denmark having been hit harder by the economic crisis than many other countries, and its easing of economic policy has made the situation worse, according to the majority in the Ritzau and RB-Børsen panel of 25 leading economists.

And despite fragile signs of economic growth, the Danish economy still has a long way to go.

The head of the government’s Wise Men agrees with the majority in the panel that economic policy during the boom years was rash.

“We are still on our way into the economic crisis that we have brought upon ourselves. There has been a drastic fall in GDP of eight percent,” says Copenhagen University Economics Professor Hans Jørgen Whitta-Jacobsen.

“The opportunistic fiscal policy from 2005 to 2007 stimulated economic growth, so the problems are self-sown. It pushed demand in society up to an unsustainable level,” Whitta-Jacobsen says.

He adds that although GDP is no longer falling, the crisis will continue to increase the number of unemployed for some time yet.

At the same time, a freeze in housing taxation helped inflate the housing market – something that the Wise Men and the central bank unsuccessfully attempted to warn politicians about several times between 2005 and 2007.

“We only have ourselves to blame for the fact that the crisis in Denmark was much deeper than in other countries,” Whitta-Jacobsen says.