Can Ulysses bind himself again to the deck, having succumbed for so long to the sirens’ allure?

Global growth has slumped and its financing is in disarray. Once again the limits to institutional rationality are self-evident. It is not that we were not warned. The historical record repeats itself: confidence gives way to exuberance, panic is followed by decline, retrenchment precedes reconstruction. From Adam Smith’s defence of moral sentiment before economic self-interest to Debreu’s algebraic articulation of the informational requirements for a welfare-maximising equilibrium, economists have been clear that markets are incomplete and cannot be left to themselves.