In praise of countercyclical policy

If it's smartly done and addresses the related problems of growth and employment, it can reap quick rewards

If there’s one lesson that the great financial crisis (GFC) of 2007-2008 taught us it is that economics is not rocket science. Reams of intensely mathematical and utterly incomprehensible papers may have been written over the last few decades in frontline journals such as the Journal of Economic Theory or Econometrica. However, when economists were actually asked to take a call on what should be done when the real global economy was collapsing like a house of cards, the debate did not transcend the level of an undergraduate economics textbook.

It all boiled down to a very simple question: Would