The global economic crisis of 2008--2009 seemed a crisis not just ofeconomic performance but also of the system's underlying political ideology andeconomic theory. But a second Great Depression was averted, and the radical shift toNew Deal-like economic policies predicted by some never took place. Perhaps thecorrect response to the crisis is simply careful management of the macroeconomicchallenges as we recover, combined with reform of financial regulation to prevent arecurrence. In " Economics After the Crisis," Adair Turner offers astrong counterargument to this somewhat complacent view. The crisis of 2008--2009, he writes, should prompt a wide set of challenges to economic and politicalassumptions and to economic theory. Turner argues that the faultsof theory and policy that led to the crisis were integral elements within a broaderset of simplistic beliefs about the objectives and means of economic activity thatdominated policy thinking for several decades. This dominant discourse cast economicgrowth as the objective, markets as the universally applicable means of achievingit, and inequality as inevitable and necessary. Turner takes on these assumptionspoint by point, arguing that more rapid growth should not be the overridingobjective for rich developed countries, that inequality should concern us, that thepre-crisis confidence in financial markets as the means of pursuing objectives wasprofoundly misplaced, and that these conclusions have broad implications for thecase for economic freedom, for specific areas of public policy (including financialregulation and climate change), and for the discipline of economicsitself.

Adair Turner was appointed Chairman of Britain’s Financial Services Authority in September 2008. A Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and at Cass Business School, London, he is the author of Just Capital: The Liberal Economy.

“A well-researched and profound rethink of macroeconomic and financial policy after the crisis. Lord Adair Turner not only challenges the consensus on short-term tactical approaches to regulation and macroeconomic management, but he forces the reader to think more deeply about the long term goals of policy, including unfettered growth and the role of the free market.”

—Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University

"Adair Turner insists that economics should analyze the world as it actually is and human beings as they actually are and avoid taking its simplifying assumptions too literally. In this short volume he sketches the elements of such an analysis and shows how they can be applied to policy problems of the day, from financial regulation and population growth to climate change and income inequality. No one who worries about the future of the economy—and the planet—will fail to be provoked."

—Barry Eichengreen, George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Political Science, University of California, Berkeley