Abstract
The U.S. economy is transitioning from a rescue phase to a recovery phase. It is easy to forget the depth of the crisis that required the rescue and easy to be impatient about the recovery. So far, the recovery has the hallmarks of a traditional recovery led by exports, fixed investment, and innovation. Issues of the federal deficit and debt loom over long-term prospects, however. Nonetheless, it should be kept in mind that the deficits are largely a product of the deep and prolonged economic slump and would diminish as a share of GDP as the economy grows stronger. This does not, however, mitigate the need to take serious action on reducing the structural deficit in a way that has bipartisan support and is smart in preserving the conditions for economic growth and fairness. Other concerns, such as oil prices, financial conditions in Europe, and the housing market must continue to be monitored and addressed.
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Presented at the 27th Annual NABE Economic Policy Conference, March 8, 2011.
*Austan Goolsbee is the chairman of President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers and a member of the Cabinet. He also serves as the chief economist of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Goolsbee is on leave from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, where he researched tax policy, American industry, technology and innovation as the Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics. He was an economic adviser to Obama's 2004 Senate campaign before serving as a senior economic adviser to Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign. Prior to joining the Obama Administration, Goolsbee was a member of the Panel of Economic Advisers to the Congressional Budget Office, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a research fellow at the American Bar Foundation. He was also a member of the U.S. Census Advisory Committee. He is a former Fulbright Scholar and Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and was selected as one of The Financial Times’ six “Gurus of the Future” (2005) and named a Young Global Leader at the 2005 World Economic Forum. An economics columnist for Slate and The New York Times, Goolsbee was awarded the 2006 Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in economics from Yale University and his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Goolsbee, A. The Prospects for the U.S. Economy and Its Major Issues: A View from the Council of Economic Advisers. Bus Econ 46, 133–138 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/be.2011.11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/be.2011.11