Keynesian Economics Is Hot Again

To the growing list of famous mainstream macroeconomists who have publicly criticized their discipline, add another: In a recent essay, Lawrence Christiano of Northwestern University argues that the Great Recession was an “earthquake” that dramatically changed how researchers think about the U.S. economy.

Christiano is known as a scholar who straddles macroeconomics’ great divide. His models adopt the basic form and some of the bedrock assumptions of the New Classicals, the economists who insisted in the 1980s that monetary and fiscal policy can’t fight recessions. But he also incorporates some elements of Keynesianism, the idea that aggregate demand shortages exist and can be corrected by the government stimulus. Perhaps as a result of their centrist take on that long-running debate, theories inspired by Christiano’s have won pride of place in central banks around the world.