Some questions can only be answered by educated guess. The question at the centre of this round table pertains to this category. We should not be ashamed of this kind of limitation of our capacity to predict the future.
We should not be ashamed of this kind of limitation of our capacity to predict the future. We have no theory, no past experience on which to build a framework of what lies ahead. We have been in a few years surprised by the turn taken by events. None of us ex-ante has foreseen the financial crisis, although many of us ex-post are pretending having done so. It is true that a non negligible number of economists, among those who are here today, have underlined the risk inherent with unfettered markets; that many have expressed doubts about the sustainability of the situation. But still none has forecasted when and how the crisis would arise.