What is it about the populist recipe that goes wrong? The literature focuses on two kinds of constraints: inflation and the balance of payments. Now these are things populists probably don’t see coming. They don’t understand the causes of inflation very well. And they may not even know what the balance of payments is.
But these are powerful forces, and ignoring them doesn’t mean they will leave you alone. The inflation problem is fairly simple. If a government wants to stimulate demand, it will want low interest rates, and it will demand that the central bank print money to buy its bonds. This extra money does a couple of things.