Interessante artigo do Acemoglu sobre a crise econômica. Concordo com a auto-critica e com os temores em relação a turma de sempre.
We do not yet know whether the global financial
and economic crisis of 2008 will go down in
history as a momentous or even uniquely catastrophic
event. Unwritten history is full of events that
contemporaries thought were epochal and are today
long forgotten. And on the other side of the scale, there
were many in the early stages of the Great Depression
that belittled its import. Though it is too soon to tell
how the second half of 2008 will feature in history
books, there should be no doubt that it signifies a critical
opportunity for the discipline of economics. It is an
opportunity for us - and here I mean the majority of the
economics profession, unfortunately myself included -
to be disabused of certain notions that we should not
have so accepted in the first place. It is also an opportunity
for us to step back and consider what the most
important lessons we have learned from our theoretical
and empirical investigations - that remain untarnished
by recent events - are and ask whether they can provide
us with guidance in current policy debates.
This Policy Insight first provides my views on what
intellectual errors we have made and what lessons these
errors offer us moving forward. My main objective,
however, is not to dwell on the intellectual currents of
the past, but to stress that economic theory still has a
lot to teach us and policy makers as we make our way
through the crisis. I would like to argue that several economic
principles related to the most important aspect
of economic performance, the long-run growth potential
of nations, are still valid and hold important lessons
in our intellectual and practical deliberations on policy.
But, curiously, these principles have played little role in
recent academic debates and have been entirely absent
in policy debates. As academic economists, it is these
principles and the implications of current policies for
the growth potential of the global economy that we
should be reminding policymakers of.
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