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Krugman Worries about L-Shaped Recession

By Anonymous

From the Cincinnati Enquirer: Nobel-winning economist speaks at UC (ht Jonathan)

The country may experience some economic growth in the latter half of this year, but don't expect the rate of job losses to abate anytime soon, noted economist and recent Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman told an audience of economists and area business leaders Friday at the University of Cincinnati.
...
"There are two kinds of recessions that are bad - those that take place because of financial crises, and those that are synchronized around the world," he said. "In both cases, the recessions tend to last longer and be deeper. Right now, we've got both going on."

And from a separate interview with the Enquirer:

Q: What will it take to pull out of this crisis?

Krugman: I'm in the camp that really worries about the L-shaped recession. We level off but we don't get the recovery. We hope it isn't, but it has all the markings of it. This looks like the kind of slump that has all the markings of where normal recovery forces are very, very weak.

It's hard to see where recovery comes from. Almost always the way a country recovers from a financial crisis is with an export boom. The problem is that we have a global crisis this time. So who are we going to export to, unless we find another planet to take our stuff?

Full post as published by Calculated Risk on April 26, 2009 (boomark / email).