The Baseline Scenario

You can now download the video of our November 4th (Tuesday) class.  The class covered a range of topics, as advertised (although I always like a class to jump around as students and guests make good points.) The highlights from my perspective were:

1. Our conversation with Laura Conaway and Dan Costello, from Planet Money, which really emphasized how crisis of confidence in the financial system became a huge shock for consumers.  This both provided a human dimension and motivated our discussion of the economics around a potential fiscal stimulus and the finance around the G20 meeting.

2. Our interaction with Arvind Subramanian, from the Peterson Institute for International Economics, about what emerging markets could and could not aim to achieve at the fast-approaching G20 meetings.  This pushed us to look at the issues from a perspective other than that of the US or Western Europe.

3. The role-playing discussion, in which students argued (on behalf of a chosen country) what they would and would not offer at the G20 summit.  This really brought out how hard it will be to make substantial progress.  At the some time, it offered some glimmers of hope – the students were trying hard to find space in which they (and their countries) could cooperate.

Here is the link for the WindowsMedia stream:

http://web.mit.edu/smcs/sloan/2008/simon_johnson/sloan-simon_johnson-financial_crisis-E51345-04nov2008-1600.asx. (You may have to use Internet Explorer to use that link.)

Again, our technical advisers recommend WindowsMedia player version 9 or later (to provide all needed playback functionality).  MIT has a support page for Windows Media that should help if you have trouble: http://web.mit.edu/smcs/help/wmplayerhelp.html

Comments of all kinds are of course welcome.  We will repeat broadcast other crisis-related class sessions if there is sufficient interest (but not otherwise).