Dismal scientists: how the crash is reshaping economics - The Atlantic Business Channel: "(1) Almost no-one predicted the world wide downtown. Academic economists were confident that episodes like the Great Depression had been confined to the dust bins of history. There was indeed much recent debate about the sources of 'The Great Moderation' in modern economies, the declining significance of business cycles.
...(2) The debate about the bank bailout, and the stimulus package, has all revolved around issues that are entirely at the level of Econ 1. What is the multiplier from government spending? Does government spending crowd out private spending? How quickly can you increase government spending? If you got a A in college in Econ 1 you are an expert in this debate: fully an equal of Summers and Geithner.
The bailout debate has also been conducted in terms that would be quite familiar to economists in the 1920s and 1930s. "
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