How Bad Is It?

Professors of Economics Barry Eichengreen and Kevin O’Rourke use the d-word:

...the world is currently undergoing an economic shock every bit as big as the Great Depression shock of 1929-30. Looking just at the US leads one to overlook how alarming the current situation is even in comparison with 1929-30. The good news, of course, is that the policy response is very different. The question now is whether that policy response will work.

Krugman is his usual chipper self.

What Eichengreen-O’Rourke show, it seems to me, is that knowledge is the only thing standing between us and Great Depression 2.0. It’s only to the extent that we understand these things a bit better than our grandfathers and that we act on that knowledge that we have any real reason to think this time will be better.

Free Exchange is less apocalyptic:

the handwringing over the state of economics is somewhat premature. We remain in the thick of a great test of economic policy. Given an economic shock as large or larger as that which set off the Great Depression, world leaders have responded very differently from their counterparts almost a century ago. If we still find ourselves in deep Depression, then economists will have much to apologise for. If instead the outcome is much better this time around, then the field of economics will have succeeding in preventing a great deal of human suffering.