The blame game continues over who is responsible for the worst recession since the Great Depression – the financiers who did such a bad job of managing risk or the regulators who failed to stop them. But the economics profession bears more than a little culpability. It provided the models that gave comfort to regulators that markets could be self-regulated; that they were efficient and self-correcting. The efficient markets hypothesis – the notion that market prices fully revealed all the relevant information – ruled the day. Today, not only is our economy in a shambles but so too is the economic paradigm that predominated in the years before the crisis – or at least it should be.
誰該對這場大蕭條以來最嚴重的衰退負責(zé)，是風(fēng)險管理工作糟糕透頂?shù)慕鹑诩遥€是未能阻止他們的監(jiān)管者？指責(zé)游戲仍在繼續(xù)。但經(jīng)濟學(xué)界承擔(dān)的不只是一點點罪責(zé)。它提供的模型，讓監(jiān)管機構(gòu)安心地相信市場可以自我監(jiān)管；相信模型是有效的，而且會自我修正。市場價格完全揭示了所有相關(guān)信息的有效市場假說曾風(fēng)靡一時。如今，不僅我們的經(jīng)濟陷入一團糟，就連在危機發(fā)生前幾年占據(jù)主導(dǎo)地位的經(jīng)濟范式也是如此——或至少應(yīng)該是。