Open AccessEconomic Problems of Our Time
Author(s) -
Nicola Acocella
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
economic affairs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 0976-4666
pISSN - 0424-2513
DOI - 10.46852/0424-2513.2.2021.14
Subject(s) - impossibility , economic stagnation , government (linguistics) , fantasy , economics , trace (psycholinguistics) , economic globalization , inequality , globalization , economic problem , political economy , political science , market economy , politics , law , computer science , mathematical analysis , philosophy , linguistics , mathematics , artificial intelligence
In this paper, we aim to look at the main problems which arose or aggravated in recent years, concerning the economic crisis, stagnation, inequalities, and globalisation, what we call ‘the terrible four’. These are partly old problems (and we trace them back in economic history), but they have become more profound in the last decades. Notwithstanding the fantasy of economists that has led to suggest the possibility to make use of new instruments of economic policy, some of them are politically constrained, which implies the impossibility for the Government to reach its economic policy targets. In fact, if the number of instruments is less than that of targets, the Government becomes a ‘lame duck’.