Over the past year and a half, and especially since last September, the assessment of the state of our economies, the forecast of the economic outlook and the formulation of economic policy have become particularly challenging because of the extraordinary uncertainty characterising the behaviour of consumers and firms and the functioning of markets.
Long gone are the days when economics and economists were described with indifference or even in unflattering terms. According to the Oxford English Dictionary: “in the 19th century, economics was the hobby of gentlemen of leisure and the vocation of a few academics” and “economists wrote about economic policy but were rarely consulted before decisions were made.” Those days are gone.