Weak economic recovery was down to flawed policies, not secular stagnation | Joseph Stiglitz

Lesson to be learned from 2008 financial crisis is that the challenge was - and is - political

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, some economists argued that the US, and perhaps the global economy, was suffering from "secular stagnation" - an idea first conceived in the aftermath of the Great Depression. Economies had always recovered from downturns, but the Great Depression had lasted an unprecedented length of time. Many believed the economy recovered only because of government spending on the second world war and many feared that with the end of the war, the economy would return to its doldrums.

Something, it was believed, had happened, such that even with low or zero interest rates, the economy would languish. For reasons now well understood, these dire predictions fortunately turned out to be wrong.

Related: US will lack fiscal space to respond when next recession comes

Policymakers failed to do enough even to prevent poor households from losing their homes