Our Children’s Economics
Many analysts today believe that economics will not change significantly in the next 20 years, despite the flaws revealed by the recent financial crisis. This presumption is almost certainly mistaken, for it reflects the same error made by scholars of technology who argue that all of the radical breakthroughs have already been made.
TOKYO – The economics profession has not had a good crisis. Queen Elizabeth II may have expected too much when she famously asked why economists had failed to foresee the disaster, but there is a widespread sense that much of their research turned out to be irrelevant. Worse still, much of the advice proffered by economists was of little use to policymakers seeking to limit the economic and financial fallout.
TOKYO – The economics profession has not had a good crisis. Queen Elizabeth II may have expected too much when she famously asked why economists had failed to foresee the disaster, but there is a widespread sense that much of their research turned out to be irrelevant. Worse still, much of the advice proffered by economists was of little use to policymakers seeking to limit the economic and financial fallout.