(Jan. 27, 2016) An extended version of my column on “China’s slowdown” now appears at VoxEU, including academic references.
China crash?
Tag Archives: financial crisis
“Why Did Economists Get it So Wrong?” — Eight who got parts of it right
The Queen of England during the summer asked economists why no one had predicted the credit crunch and recession. Paul Krugman points out that, inasmuch as economists can almost never predict the timing of recessions (and don’t claim to be able to), the real questions are worse. The real questions are, rather how macroeconomists (most) could have gotten it so wrong as to believe that:
(i) a severe recession was not even looming ahead as a potential danger, and
(ii) a breakdown of many of the world’s most liquid financial markets, in New York and London, was impossible to imagine.
Needed in Treasury Plan: Price-discovery, write-down, & taxpayer protection
Some observations on the plan announced by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner yesterday:
Clearly we need to hear more details. I sympathize with Geithner, who has only been in office a couple of weeks. He has had to take over in the middle of the worst financial crisis in 77 years, at the same time that he must personally fill out the reams of forms that it takes to get confirmed by the Senate (like all such new appointees) and to fill lots of positions throughout the upper levels of the Treasury. But the American public will demand further elaboration on his plan soon.