Events

Finn E. Kydland

Consistency of government policies for long-term growth

The Rafael del Pino Foundation hosted the lecture by Finn E. Kydland entitled "Consistency of government policies for long-term growth", as part of the series of Master Lectures "Lessons from the crisis", on 7 April 2010.

Finn E. Kydland stated that "governments are not trying to boost the economy with the long term in mind; rather they seem to be reacting to what they see as short term problems: What tends to happen in these circumstances (the perfect example of what I am saying is what happened in Argentina) is that the long term economic growth of countries stagnates. It is important that governments do several things: that they listen to economic specialists; that they make sure that private initiative is strong and takes shape; that they make sure that resources go to the economic agents who can use them most productively... And all of that is usually achieved without the intervention of governments.

Finn E. Kydland stressed that: "Businesses and entrepreneurs are economically strong enough. There may be times when there are negative circumstances, external shocks like those of the last two years [...] But I don't think the solution is for governments to use these circumstances to interfere too much in the economy. If governments let companies continue to innovate; if they ensure the credit and infrastructure conditions for that innovation process to continue, then the economy will recover and be stronger in the long run. And the long-term evolution is the most important thing.

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The Rafael del Pino Foundation is not responsible for any comments, opinions or statements made by third parties. In this respect, the FRP is not obliged to monitor the views expressed by such third parties who participate in its activities and which are expressed as a result of their inalienable right to freedom of expression and under their own responsibility. The contents included in the summary of this conference are the result of the discussions that took place during the conference organised for this purpose at the Foundation and are the sole responsibility of its authors.