For immediate release, PM Thursday 9 October 2008
RESCUING OUR JOBS AND SAVINGS
We are in the throes of what is almost certainly the most serious economic and financial crisis of our lifetimes. The crisis is no longer a US crisis, or even a US and European crisis; it is a global crisis. It has spread from the financial sector to the real economy. It is not just investment portfolios and retirement accounts at risk: continued turmoil will soon start to destroy jobs.
There is a need for urgent action. The policy response needs to be decisive. It needs to be global.
With this sense of urgency in mind, we have assembled a group of leading economists to offer priorities for crisis response. The authors are: Alberto Alesina, Michael Burda, Charles Calomiris, Roger Craine, Stijn Claessens, J Bradford DeLong, Douglas Diamond, Barry Eichengreen, Daniel Gros, Luigi Guiso, Anil K Kashyap, Marco Pagano, Avinash Persaud, Richard Portes, Raghuram G Rajan, Guido Tabellini, Charles Wyplosz and Klaus Zimmermann.
The dozen essays present a remarkable consensus on a few points: we need immediate, coordinated global action that includes recapitalisation of the banks.
The book is available for free download here:
http://www.voxeu.eu/index.php?q=node/2340
Romesh Vaitilingam