Economic policies: a paradigm shift

With the health crisis, the concepts of externalities and irreversibility have suddenly become extremely concrete. Everyone, too, suddenly realized how far the social value of an activity could deviate from its monetary value. In terms of economic policy, at the same time, the responses implemented shook up what remained certainties: internally, with the massive recourse to public debt and de facto coordination between budgetary and monetary policies; at the European level, with the suspension of the rules of competition and budgetary discipline, then the recourse to joint debt; and internationally, with the rediscovery that a deep and liquid world market is not enough to ensure economic security.

A new consensus has been forged in action. Will it be sustainable? Will it herald a redefinition of concepts, priorities and instruments, or, as after 2008, will the river return to its bed? What breaks can we anticipate, what continuities can we still count on?