"In the Wake of the Crisis : Leading Economists Reassess Economic Policy" Edited by Olivier Blanchard, David Romer, Michael Spence, and Joseph Stiglitz

To understand the issues raised by the recent global crisis, IMF organized a conference on March 7-8, 2011, around six themes: monetary policy, fiscal policy, financial intermediation and regulation, capital account management, growth strategies, and the international monetary system. The conference proceedings are published in a book, In the Wake of the Crisis: Leading Economists Reassess Economic Policy. This review presents a summary of the book and provides its implications for research and policy. The book contains 23 chapters, editors’ sets of questions and notes for each of the six areas; and concluding remarks by Olivier Blanchard. Each essay is about 4 to 13 pages in length; and provides concise, lucid descriptions, in non-technical language, of the recent crisis. Missing from the book is the adequate analysis of the increase in measures of aggregate productivity concurrent with strong contractions in output and employment; and the role of income inequality on the crisis.