Crisis? What Crisis? The World Economy in the Trump Era

Economies like the Netherlands and Ireland are experiencing faster than average growth in economic output and employment. Our governments have never been able to borrow as cheaply. There may be a temptation to feel like the 2007 crisis is far behind us, that the good times are here again. Ordinary people may well ask: Crisis? What Crisis? Unfortunately this prosperity is fragile to many kinds of external event. There has been no greater shock than Donald Trump. By advocating ‘American First’, Trump’s protectionist policies undermine the business model small open economies have prospered under for many years. The economic consequences for financial services, for manufacturing, and for trade could be profound. 

With a critical response by the Groningen macroeconomist Jochen Mierau, associate professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen.

Stephen Kinsella is Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Limerick. He is a consultant to the Bank of England, and a research fellow at University College Dublin’s Geary Institute. Stephen Kinsella  is a weekly columnist for the Sunday Business Post and won Business Journalist of the Year in 2016. A critic of Ireland’s austerity regime, he builds and estimates macroeconomic models in his academic work.

This series is organized in cooperation with the Faculty of Economics and Business of the Groningen University.