Economics needs to evolve
There has been too much focus on equilibrium
![](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/sites/default/files/images/print-edition/20210626_FND000_0.jpg)
NOT FOR the first time this century, the global economy is rebounding from crisis. The new normal will differ from the old one. The pandemic shifted resources around, destroyed firms, and subtly adjusted habits. The economy has evolved, in other words. Strangely, most economic models do not treat the economy as an evolving thing, undergoing constant change. They instead describe it in terms of its equilibrium: a stable state in which prices balance supply and demand, or the path the economy follows back to stability when a shock disturbs its rest. Though such strategies have sometimes proved useful, economics is the poorer for its neglect of the economy’s evolutionary nature.
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “All change”
Finance & economics June 26th 2021
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