3 December 2020 Martin Feldstein And finally, no matter how good the science gets, there are problems that inevitably depend on judgement, on art, on a feel for financial markets.
3 December 2020 Martin Feldstein A second reason why science cannot replace judgement is the behavior of financial markets.
3 December 2020 Martin Feldstein The only way that we can reduce our financial dependence on the inflow of funds from the rest of the world is to reduce our trade deficit.
3 December 2020 Martin Feldstein To finance this trade deficit, the U.S. has to borrow from the rest of the world or sell American assets like stocks, businesses, and real estate to the rest of the world.
3 December 2020 Martin Feldstein First, I think the science of monetary economics has clearly gotten better.
3 December 2020 Martin Feldstein But because we in the United States finance our current account deficit by borrowing in our own currency, we can move to a more competitive dollar without the adverse effects that followed currency declines in other countries.
3 December 2020 Martin Feldstein A rise in the level of saving can reduce aggregate activity temporarily but only a sustained high level of saving makes it possible to have the sustained high level of business investment that contributes to the long-run growth of output.
