Where now for Economics?
A fascinating debate to celebrate the launch of the Janeway Institute discussed the future heading of research into economics, and examined the link between financial markets and the real economy.
'Economics Evolving: Recent Trends and Future Directions', was chaired by Professor Vasco Carvalho, the Director of the Janeway Institute. Panel members were Professor Hélène Rey from LBS, Professor Antoinette Schoar from MIT, Professor Hyun Song Shin from BIS and Professor Joseph Stiglitz from Columbia University.
Professor Antoinette Schoar from MIT Sloan School of Management started the discussion by explaining how the Global Financial Crisis, over a decade ago, impacted the world of finance. She then examined whether it resulted an increase in social good, in other words a resulting increase in awareness of problems and subsequent solutions in the markets provided a tangible benefit to the general public.
She explained that the finance profession received a lot of criticism after the 2008 crisis for being out of touch, and not caring about real-world problems. “Some of the this might not have been justified, simply because people didn’t understand what we work on,” she explained. “However, it is certainly true that we often had little to say about actual solutions, or indeed about policy implementation for financial problems.”
Read the full article on the Faculty of Economics site
