On October 19th, Prof Barry Eichengreen, George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Political Science, University of California, Berkeley delivered his second public lecture as the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Term Professor in Economics and Finance at the Department of Economics, NUS.

Prof Eichengreen made some late changes to his talk, changing the title to “The Long-term consequences of the Financial Crisis: What we know, what we don’t, and what we can learn from the 1930s.”

This new title reflected what Prof Eichengreen believes is the need for economists to adopt a more singular approach to the crisis given how the recent crisis has been so deep, global and financially-pervasive. Economists have been quick to judge the causes and short-term consequences of the crisis but analysis of potential long-term consequences has been scant, resulting in a high degree of uncertainty as to whether or not future growth will be permanently imparied by the crisis. The lecture was followed by a vibrant and wide-ranging Q&A session.