On Thursday, September 21, 2023, the Department of Economics and the Juli Plant Grainger Institute hosted Harvard Economics Professor Dr. Karen Dynan for her State of the Economy Address, “Challenges for U.S. Economic Policy.”
Dr. Dynan addressed a crowd of UW-Madison students, faculty, and members of the community, and discussed the current health of the economy in the United States, and projections into the future. Dr. Dynan began by comparing the U.S. COVID recession to that of the 2008 Great Recession to discuss how the vigorous pandemic policy response led to a very fast economic recovery, as well as how the pandemic has affected inflation. Dr. Dynan also analyzed the unsustainably high and increasing government debt, and some of the reasons it is difficult to mitigate it. She also examined the role of globalization and artificial intelligence on the debt, unemployment rates, trade, and more.
Dr. Dynan argued that policymakers must confront very difficult budget decisions in order to stabilize the federal debt and return the economy to its post-pandemic state. Her talk was followed by a Q&A session where she spoke on the impacts of unemployment insurance, the worker shortage and corporate greed, other inflation shortcomings, and more.
Thank you for your continued interest and support of the Department of Economics. We look forward to welcoming you at future events.
