The Economist’s Great Recession: An Exercice in Revealed Preferences

The Economist's Great Recession is the second chapter of a forthcoming essay (The Discreet Charm of Economic Growth) on the paramountcy of economic growth in modern societies. Beginning with the last days of the Great Moderation, this chronicle follows The Economist’s coverage of the recent Great Recession. It pays close attention to its editors’ malaise towards what can already be grasped as the unappealing post-recession ‘new normal’. One question becomes increasingly pressing: What exactly stands in the way of a return to the pre-2007 world? Among likely culprits: consumer tastes, workplace regulations, public policies, and scientific disciplines. Often ironical, sometimes playful, always attentive to analytical intricacies, this chronicle captures the articulation of an overriding preference for an economic growth that is mostly divorced from the playing out of individual preferences.