Meeting economic crisis: British author calls for regional cooperation
Lord Desai’s latest work offers a historical perspective to the global economic crisis.
Lord Desai’s latest work offers a historical perspective to the global economic crisis .
ISLAMABAD:
The world economic crisis came as a shock for many, but for historians, it has existed before. On her visit to the London School of Economics (LSE) in 2008, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II had asked why academics “did not tell anybody what was going to happen?”
While analyses continue to pour in, some explanation of the failure to predict the crisis may be found in Lord Meghnad Desai’s latest book, “Hubris: Why Economists Failed to Predict the Crisis and How to Avoid the Next One”, launched at the Islamabad Club on Saturday.
Desai is professor emeritus at the LSE, an economist and Labour Party politician. His new book chronicles the crisis, arguing that at present, recovery only seems possible in the United States and in a few European countries, while most of the Eurozone still struggles to revive their economies.
The first part of the book addresses why economies fail and is related to framing the economy in a way so as to avoid future crisis. The second part details his explanation of what happened, offering a historical perspective dating some two centuries back. “When you go back to forgotten writers of economics, you realise the crisis is a cycle and crisis happen. That is how the system works, by occasionally breaking down and bouncing back,” he maintained.
Desai also underlines how the crisis altered global economic hierarchies. He pointed to the economic crisis in the once-rich states in the former Soviet Union, while China and Vietnam have emerged as strong economies.
There was global governance on the financial front that started in 1945, but the dynamics have now changed. “The balance of power has changed, emerging economies have emerged and the so-called rich economies have submerged,” he said.
In the current changing world, he added, there was no need for four or five global lending agencies such as the IMF and there was a need to develop cooperation among economies of the region.
Adviser to Prime Minister on National Security and Foreign Policy, Sartaj Aziz said that the author’s in-depth review of the Chinese economy was worth a read, as it exemplifies the country’s steady growth.
The minister attributed Pakistan’s limited growth to the inadequacy of the country’s bureaucracy.
“While the bureaucrats in South Korea in the 1960s and 70s supported the growth of the private sector, Pakistani bureaucrats were more interested in following the colonial strategy of keeping all powers in their own hands,” he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 10th, 2015.
The world economic crisis came as a shock for many, but for historians, it has existed before. On her visit to the London School of Economics (LSE) in 2008, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II had asked why academics “did not tell anybody what was going to happen?”
While analyses continue to pour in, some explanation of the failure to predict the crisis may be found in Lord Meghnad Desai’s latest book, “Hubris: Why Economists Failed to Predict the Crisis and How to Avoid the Next One”, launched at the Islamabad Club on Saturday.
Desai is professor emeritus at the LSE, an economist and Labour Party politician. His new book chronicles the crisis, arguing that at present, recovery only seems possible in the United States and in a few European countries, while most of the Eurozone still struggles to revive their economies.
The first part of the book addresses why economies fail and is related to framing the economy in a way so as to avoid future crisis. The second part details his explanation of what happened, offering a historical perspective dating some two centuries back. “When you go back to forgotten writers of economics, you realise the crisis is a cycle and crisis happen. That is how the system works, by occasionally breaking down and bouncing back,” he maintained.
Desai also underlines how the crisis altered global economic hierarchies. He pointed to the economic crisis in the once-rich states in the former Soviet Union, while China and Vietnam have emerged as strong economies.
There was global governance on the financial front that started in 1945, but the dynamics have now changed. “The balance of power has changed, emerging economies have emerged and the so-called rich economies have submerged,” he said.
In the current changing world, he added, there was no need for four or five global lending agencies such as the IMF and there was a need to develop cooperation among economies of the region.
Adviser to Prime Minister on National Security and Foreign Policy, Sartaj Aziz said that the author’s in-depth review of the Chinese economy was worth a read, as it exemplifies the country’s steady growth.
The minister attributed Pakistan’s limited growth to the inadequacy of the country’s bureaucracy.
“While the bureaucrats in South Korea in the 1960s and 70s supported the growth of the private sector, Pakistani bureaucrats were more interested in following the colonial strategy of keeping all powers in their own hands,” he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 10th, 2015.