Today’s statesmen like to say that they have avoided the protectionist error that fueled the Great Depression of the 1930's. But is that true, given indications of accelerating deglobalization in trade and finance?
PARIS – Global policymakers regularly congratulate themselves on having avoided the policy errors of the 1930’s during the financial crisis that began in 2008. Led by US Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, an economic historian of the Great Depression, they remembered the ideas of John Maynard Keynes and loosened monetary and fiscal policy to avoid the worst. We are still coping with the budgetary consequences, especially in Europe, but it is true that the world did not end in 2008.
PARIS – Global policymakers regularly congratulate themselves on having avoided the policy errors of the 1930’s during the financial crisis that began in 2008. Led by US Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, an economic historian of the Great Depression, they remembered the ideas of John Maynard Keynes and loosened monetary and fiscal policy to avoid the worst. We are still coping with the budgetary consequences, especially in Europe, but it is true that the world did not end in 2008.