It’s Different This Time

Check out the accompanying pdf and chart collection. Executive Summary: Today, we compare the current economic and financial environment with those of three past periods—the late 1970s, early 2000s, and mid-2000s. Today’s environment resembles the other three in that easy credit conditions fueled price and/or asset inflation, which led to tightening of credit conditions. In the past periods, that set off economywide credit crunches and recessions that moderated inflation. This time is different: No economywide recession is forthcoming, yet inflation is moderating anyway. The most important difference about this period, however, is that productivity growth is unlikely to collapse but to boom throughout the rest of this decade.