Blanchard l'ottimista e il treno alla fine del tunnel

Gli studenti del mio corso di Macroeconomia saranno incuriositi da una recente dichiarazione dell'autore del loro manuale di studio, Olivier Blanchard, capo economista del Fondo Monetario Internazionale. Il noto economista francese è celebre anche per essere un brillante ottimista rispetto alla maggior parte degli analisti, accademici e non.

Tuttavia, in un'intervista diffusa ieri da Reuters, Blanchard conferma che gli effetti della crisi iniziata
nel 2007-2008 continueranno ad influenzare negativamente l'economia mondiale per almeno un decennio, e che ci sono diversi rischi sistemici all'orizzonte. Evidentemente il povero Blanchard non sa che qualche nostrano osservatore vede invece già la luce in fondo al tunnel... Che sia un treno?


Qualche frase di Blanchard: 

"The world economy will take at least 10 years to emerge from the financial crisis that began in 2008, the International Monetary Fund's Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard said in an interview published on Wednesday.

...

But even though the focus was on Europe's troubles now, he said, the United States also had a fiscal problem which it had to resolve.

"It's not yet a lost decade... But it will surely take at least a decade from the beginning of the crisis for the world economy to get back to decent shape," Blanchard said.

"Japan is facing a very difficult fiscal adjustment too, one which will take decades to solve. China has probably taken care of its asset boom but has slower growth than before, but we do not forecast any really hard landing," he added.

Blanchard said that adjustment in the euro zone required a decrease in prices in the bloc's indebted southern half and a rise in core countries.

...

"A somewhat higher inflation rate in Germany should simply be seen as a necessary and desirable, relative price adjustment," Blanchard said. "Given overall demand conditions and the ECB's strong mandate to ensure price stability, this is not the beginning of hyperinflation," he said.

On the debt crisis, Blanchard said that debt reductions were unavoidable but it should be done without stifling growth, walking on a "narrow middle path."

"If you do it too slow, the market thinks you're not serious, if you do it too fast, you kill the economy. For each country you have to find the right path of consolidation," he said.

He said inflation-targeting had serious limitations and using just the main policy rate was not enough.

"You can have an economy in which inflation is stable and low, but behind the scenes the composition of the output is wrong, and the financial system accumulates risks"