What Have We Learned from the Global Financial Crisis?

According to the policy ideas that have dominated the policy debate since the 1970s, the Global Financial Crisis and the subsequent slump in the United States and Europe should never have happened. The crisis provided sufficient evidence to reject the Efficient Markets Hypothesis, along with the dominant models in academic macroeconomics and policy claims such as the 'trickle-down' hypothesis and the case for comprehensive privatisation. In reality, few of these lessons have been learned and much of the policy response to the crisis has been irrelevant or counter-productive. As a result, we have learned some unflattering lessons about the economics profession, including policy-makers, commentators, central bankers and academic economists.