There is no reason economists should agree about what is politically possible. What they can and should agree about is what would have happened if their preferred policies had been implemented – and keep those lessons in mind as the next downturn approaches.
NEW YORK – As Larry Summers rightly points out, the term “secular stagnation” became popular as World War II was drawing to a close. Alvin Hansen (and many others) worried that, without the stimulation provided by the war, the economy would return to recession or depression. There was, it seemed, a fundamental malady.
But it didn’t happen. How did Hansen and others get it so wrong? Like some modern-day secular stagnation advocates, there were deep flaws in the underlying micro- and macroeconomic analysis – most importantly, in the analysis of the causes of the Great Depression itself.
As Bruce Greenwald and I (with our co-authors) have argued, high growth in agricultural productivity (combined with high global production) drove down crop prices – in some cases by 75% – in the first three years of the Depression alone. Incomes in the country’s major economic sector plummeted by around half. The crisis in agriculture led to a decrease in demand for urban goods and thus to an economy-wide downturn.
NEW YORK – As Larry Summers rightly points out, the term “secular stagnation” became popular as World War II was drawing to a close. Alvin Hansen (and many others) worried that, without the stimulation provided by the war, the economy would return to recession or depression. There was, it seemed, a fundamental malady.
But it didn’t happen. How did Hansen and others get it so wrong? Like some modern-day secular stagnation advocates, there were deep flaws in the underlying micro- and macroeconomic analysis – most importantly, in the analysis of the causes of the Great Depression itself.
As Bruce Greenwald and I (with our co-authors) have argued, high growth in agricultural productivity (combined with high global production) drove down crop prices – in some cases by 75% – in the first three years of the Depression alone. Incomes in the country’s major economic sector plummeted by around half. The crisis in agriculture led to a decrease in demand for urban goods and thus to an economy-wide downturn.