The shocks and crises of recent years - pandemic, recession, inflation, war - have forced executives and investors to recognize that the macroeconomy is now a risk to be actively managed. Yet unreliable forecasting, pervasive doomsaying, and whipsawing data severely hamper the task of decoding the landscape. Are disruptions transient and ephemeral—or permanent and structural? False alarms are costly traps, but so are true structural changes that go undetected.
How can leaders avoid these macro traps to make better tactical and strategic decisions?
In this perspective-shifting book, BCG chief economist Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak and senior economist Paul Swartz provide a fresh and accessible way to assess macroeconomic risk, and a corrective to prevailing thinking and practice. Casting doubt on conventional model-based thinking, they demonstrate a more powerful approach to building sound macroeconomic judgment. Using incisive analysis built upon frameworks, historical context, and structural narratives - what they call “economic eclecticism” - the book empowers readers with the durable skills to assess continuously evolving risks in the real economy, financial system, and the geopolitical arena.
Moreover, the authors’ richer and more nuanced approach reveals that the all too common narratives of economic collapse and decline are often false alarms, while the fundamental strengths of our current “era of tightness” become visible.
With rational optimism rather than gloom, Shocks, crises, and false alarms speaks to the key financial and macroeconomic controversies that define our times - and provides a compass for navigating the macroeconomy. Rather than relying on blinking dashboards or flashy headlines, leaders can and should judge macroeconomic risks for themselves.