These days everything seems to have gone wrong — the financial crisis, rampant corruption, turmoil in West Asia and now in London, and the growing monster of inflation in several countries. All these crises seem to be beyond the policy makers’ control and are, in a way, black swans, a term coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. More than the ongoing policy analyses and response, it is these crises that are going to shape most of the future. So the question is, how to deal with these black swans? One can find an answer in Taleb’s writings and speeches. The answer lies in the question itself. Policy makers need to ponder which “high-impact” policies have been put in the cold storage and which need to be implemented soon.
Chandrashekhar G Ranade, World Bank (retired)
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