More important than litigating the past is thinking about the future. Even if we disagree about past political judgements and about the use of the term “secular stagnation,” I am glad that an eminent theorist like Stiglitz agrees with what I intended to emphasize in resurrecting that theory: We cannot rely on interest-rate policies to ensure full employment. We must think hard about fiscal policies and structural measures to support sustained and adequate aggregate demand.
Lawrence H. Summers, U.S. secretary of the Treasury (1999-2001) and director of the U.S. National Economic Council (2009-2010), is a former president of Harvard University, where he is currently university professor.