Robust growth or anemic recovery in the U.S. and the global economy

摘要

It is a real pleasure to be here to share some of my views. I am going to focus my remarks mostly on the short- to medium-term and on the demand side. Most of this panel has demonstrated why economics is often referred to as the "dismal science" - and this crisis has given us every right to be dismal. In the competition among the panel, I am going to try to out-distance the other panelists and be a little more dismal than they are about the short- to medium-term. I want to begin by putting the problem in context by thinking about the world as it was before the crisis. What sustained the American economy and, to a large extent, the global economy was America's housing bubble (and bubbles in a number of other countries), and that housing bubble allowed a consumption boom. As already mentioned by several speakers, this is what kept the U.S. economy going. It fueled high levels of consumption and a household savings rate that was close to zero.