IEȘIREA DIN „MAREA RECESIUNE”

Abstract

Although considered an economic cataclysm comparable to the Great Depression, the Great Recession was in fact overcome quite swiftly. The paper focuses on the unfolding of the Great Recession in the United States, in Europe and in Romania, as well as on the policies and measures to restore growth. A special section labelled Lessons learned? deals with issues like the moral hazard of saving economic actors who fostered the crisis through their reckless pursuit of maximizing short-term profits, the institutional arrangements governing the financial sector, and the role of various stimulus packages. While combinations of neokeynesian policies have helped in overcoming the recession, the authors ask whether the fast recovery (at least at global level) has not prevented a thorough restructuring of the economy in order to avoid future crises. Another issue is whether the social costs of the adjustments needed to overcome the recession, combined with the trend towards increasing economic polarization, are partially responsible for the upsurge of populist, illiberal and authoritarian political actors and/or movements, which provide pseudo-solutions to the challenges of the 21st century and therefore make progressive adjustments even more difficult.