Jeffrey Sachs on the Crisis, the Recovery, and the Future

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4.7 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2013

⏱️ 68 minutes

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Summary

Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University and author of The Price of Civilization talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the state of the American economy. Sachs sees the current malaise as a chronic problem rather than a short-term challenge caused by the business cycle. He lists a whole host of issues he thinks policymakers need to deal with including the environment, inequality, and infrastructure. He disagrees with the Keynesian prescriptions for stimulating the economy and believes that the federal government budget deficits are a serious problem. The conversation closes with a discussion of the state of economics.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:06.4	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:11.0	Our website is econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find links
0:16.3	and other information related to today's conversation.
0:19.0	You'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done going
0:23.3	back to 2006.
0:25.4	Our email address is mailadykontalk.org, we'd love to hear from you.
0:33.1	Today is April 4th, 2012, and my guest is Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University.
0:38.3	He's the Director of the Earth Institute, and his latest book is The Price of Civilization.
0:42.9	Jeff, welcome to Econ Talk.
0:45.1	Well, thanks so much.
0:46.1	Great to be with you.
0:47.1	Our topic for today is the U.S. economy.
0:49.4	I'm sure we'll get into a lot of other areas as well.
0:52.6	You argue that we face chronic problems, but our solutions that we've been trying are
0:57.2	very temporary.
0:58.2	What are the chronic problems that you think face the United States and what should we be
1:01.9	doing about them?
1:03.7	Really, since the early 1980s, we've seen a pretty significant structural change in the
1:12.5	U.S. economy, and it's been manifested in changing labor markets, changing patterns
1:19.3	of production, changing patterns of trade, changing patterns of finance.
1:25.3	And a lot of ecological harms and disasters.
	...

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