Stagflation - Recent Views

Recent Views

Until recently no macroeconomic policy had been able to predict the occurrence of stagflation.

After the fact, and several years of research, a convincing explanation was provided based on the effects of adverse supply shocks on both prices and output. According to Blanchard (2009), these adverse events were one of two components of stagflation; the other was "ideas", which Robert Lucas (famous for the Lucas Supply Curve), Thomas Sargent, and Robert Barro were cited as expressing as "wildly incorrect" and "fundamentally flawed" predictions which, they said, left stagflation to be explained by "contemporary students of the business cycle". In this discussion, Blanchard hypothesizes that the recent oil price increases could trigger another period of stagflation, although this has not yet happened (pg. 152).

Read more about this topic:  Stagflation

Famous quotes containing the word views:

    It is surely a matter of common observation that a man who knows no one thing intimately has no views worth hearing on things in general. The farmer philosophizes in terms of crops, soils, markets, and implements, the mechanic generalizes his experiences of wood and iron, the seaman reaches similar conclusions by his own special road; and if the scholar keeps pace with these it must be by an equally virile productivity.
    Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)

    I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
    Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)