ECONOMY

 
In the aftermath of worldwide financial and economic crisis, questions of economic policy-making efficacy have taken on a rare quality of immediacy.

Although the dominant liberalizing current of the past decade was not abandoned outright, even the most vocal state supporters of free-market policy regimes found themselves forced into interventionist industrial policy and unprecedented state support for financial or other economic sectors. Long-term sustainability goals took a back seat to the stabilization of economies facing the real threat of collapse.

Assessments of economic policy thus examine the balance struck by decision-makers between perceived short-term necessities and long-term goals. The extent to which economies were kept from sliding into recession and long-term unemployment is important, as is the ability to enable a return to growth as the effects of recession ebbed.

Ratings of economic competitiveness and attractiveness as a place to do business make up a portion of this assessment, as do less subjective measures such as GDP per capita and inflation rates.