Love and recessions

Do we need a recession?
Ricardo Hausmann (here) and Kenneth Rogoff (here) say yes. Lawrence Summers (here) disagrees.

Since Rogoff spent some time as chief econonomist of the IMF and Summers spent some time as chief economist of the WB, this difference in opinions reminded me of a nice article by Rogoff on the future of the IMF and WB. It started like this: As the two Bretton Woods sisters turn 60, the tough love of the International Monetary Fund and even the free love of the World Bank... [the italic is mine, the article is here].

Wait a moment! What about Ricardo? He was the first chief economist of the Inter-American Development Bank (where he was my boss). What type of love did we practice at the IDB?

What about Nouriel Roubini? In the late 1990s I spent a considerable amount of time partying with Nouriel, we didn't talk much about economics, but on other things I am pretty sure that we were all supporting free love. And yet, this NYT article describes him as Dr. Doom (thanks to Francesca for sending the article). Is he getting into S&M? (sorry, I couldn't resist the joke). More seriously, here is what Nouriel thinks of the NYT article.

Update

This is Tyler Cowen on Nouriel (with also a link to Paul Krugman)

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