Central Banking, Protectionism and Globalization

The recent global financial crisis has resulted in a new creative set of economic policies. The justifi- cation for the unconventional policy response was based on the implicit assumption that the departure from the norms of macroeconomic policies would be temporary. This detour has lasted longer than expected. Now that the process of normalization has started in the United States and is likely to be followed (albeit in some delay) in Europe, it would be important for policy makers to emphasize that the unconventional set of economic policies were just a detour from the longstanding convention rather than representing a new paradigm. The experience of the crisis and the post-crises years should be recorded in history as reflecting a period during which new and important policy chapters were drafted. These chapters should be added to the corpus of knowledge of macroeconomic theory and policy. The new chapters contain important lessons that should definitely not be forgotten once the crisis is over. They should be added to, but not replace, the old textbooks.