In the current issue of Foreign Policy, the editors of the FP Survey ask “top experts” for pithy solutions to the world’s economic problems, “twitter style.” Some of the answers:
THE BIGGEST THREAT TO THE GLOBAL ECONOMY IS …
Anti-market bias. -Bryan Caplan • Procrastination. -Peter Diamond • Short-term thinking. -Esther Dyson • A euro meltdown. -Dean Baker • Tax-cut fanatics. -Jeffrey Frankel • The bond market. -Andy Sumner •
MY OUT-OF-THE-BOX SUGGESTION TO REVIVE THE GLOBAL ECONOMY IS
Wipe out debts. -Daron Acemoglu • Require candidates for national office to pass ninth-grade tests on arithmetic, history, and geography. -Jeffrey Frankel • Double down on science. -Tyler Cowen • A government lottery where winners have mortgages, student loans, or other debt paid off. -Mark Thoma • We don’t need “out-of-the-box” solutions; we need “head-out-of-the-sand” ones. -Adam Hersh • Pray. -David Smick
BARACK OBAMA’S BIGGEST ECONOMIC MISTAKE HAS BEEN …
Letting Larry Summers go. -Gary Hufbauer • Not reorganizing the big banks. —David Smick • Trying too hard to find common ground with an opposition that won’t compromise on any terms. -Vincent Crawford • Assuming office in January 2009. -Jeffrey Frankel
OCCUPY WALL STREET IS …
A misdirected tantrum. -Philip Levy • A harmless pastime for unemployed youth. -Gary Hufbauer • Reasonable complaints about crony capitalism plus self-righteous economic illiteracy. -Bryan Caplan
BY ELECTION DAY 2012, THE U.S. ECONOMY WILL BE …
Improving, but leaving many people behind. -Arnold Kling . Limping along, with unemployment declining but still around 8 percent. -Daron Acemoglu . Blamed for the outcome. -Jeffrey Frankel
ECONOMISTS SHOULD BE PAYING MORE ATTENTION TO …
How people actually behave rather than how they are idealized to behave. -Abhijit Banerjee • Corporate governance. -Peter Diamond • The fact that macroeconomic theory went up a blind alley some 20 years ago. -Jeffrey Frankel • Creeping protectionism across the global economy. -Gary Hufbauer • The impediments to job creation for young people. -Valerie Ramey • Reality. -James D. Hamilton