A new Washington Consensus?

'Bad' policy ideas long considered dead are again being taken seriously by economists

Academic economics is not the most swift-moving of disciplines. It does not respond as swiftly as it could to real-world events. It is not that it is disconnected from the real world. It is unfair to call economists, of all people, detached ivory-tower sorts; they, after all, have to work with actual real-world data most of the time. But it is true that research projects take time to respond to the headlines. Changing an entire discipline’s research agenda and priorities is like turning around a supertanker — you need a lot of space and time. 

The financial crash of 2008