Lastly, Colombia considered that the Economic and Social Council should become a major development forum.

15. The Saami Council is of the opinion that the permanent forum should be established as a subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and with a mandate that embraces the full range of issues under ECOSOC apos s mandate.

A Grand Unified Economic Theory?

Not surprisingly, a catchphrase in economic policy debates nowadays is secular stagnation, the idea that excess savings chronically dampen demand. The economist Robert Gordon has also argued that the world is low on economically productive ideas.

As a result, Glimcher is skeptical of prevailing economic theory, and is seeking a physical basis for it in the brain. He wants to transform soft utility theory into hard utility theory by discovering the brain mechanisms that underlie it.

Both in theory and in practice, it is possible to establish a distinction between economic behaviour and its evaluation in the perspective of human rights.

We have already heard them here in the Council, and we think perhaps they make good sense.

And slowly, that idea is leaking out to the cognitive sciences, the human sciences, economics, et cetera.

There is agreement that the Economic and Social Council must be reformed.

7. In the agreed conclusions 1997 1, the Economic and Social Council agreed that many developing countries were not able to benefit from the globalization of the world economy over the past decade.

Marshall s economics has had a marvelous run, and has helped economists make sense of the world. Yet there is a sense that progress and understanding will require something new an economics of virtuous circles, thresholds, and butterfly effects, in which small changes have very large effects.

The Assistant Secretary General on Economic Development opened the discussion and made a statement.

10. Ms. HOMANOVS apos KA (Ukraine) said that her delegation believed that the format of discussions at the sessions of the Economic and Social Council should be changed.

The so called Chicago School has mounted a robust defense of its rational expectations based approach, rejecting the notion that a rethink is required. The Nobel laureate economist Robert Lucas has argued that the crisis was not predicted because economic theory predicts that such events cannot be predicted.

Worse than that, at least until recently, a committee evaluating an economist would likely think that writing a popular economics book that does not repeat the received wisdom of the discipline might even be professionally unethical.

Turning to the Economic and Social Council, it is our view that the important role of that body in dealing with security challenges having economic causes has been overlooked.

Japan was pleased that that theme had been taken up at the high level segment of the Economic and Social Council in 1996 and felt that that discussion should help generate momentum for the proposed special session of the General Assembly in 1998.

Development is about human beings, not just economic theory.

Economic and Social Council resolutions

In recent years, however, neither economic theory nor empirical evidence has been kind to the presumed tradeoff. Economists have produced new arguments showing why good economic performance is not only compatible with distributive fairness, but may even demand it.

Rather than fiscal stimulation and control, the main tool of economic management nowadays is monetary policies conducted by independent central banks. Keynesian demand management was thus displaced by a new understanding which we owe largely to Friedman that pursuing fiscal discipline and price stability is the best guarantee of macroeconomic sustainability.

11. In the context of its discussions on volatility and vulnerability, the Economic and Social Council agreed that the increased integration of the world economy has the potential for increased volatility, particularly in international financial markets .

We believe that a better relationship should be promoted between the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council.

Why, for example, did China s decision to accumulate foreign reserves result in a mortgage lender in Ohio taking excessive risks? If your answer does not use elements from behavioral economics, agency theory, information economics, and international economics, among others, it is likely to remain seriously incomplete.

Both traditions, though, were eclipsed by the Chicago school of rational expectations, which has dominated mainstream economics for the last twenty five years. With economic agents supposedly possessing perfect information about all possible contingencies, systemic crises could never happen except as a result of accidents and surprises beyond the reach of economic theory.

The vast majority of economists it is so uncool to call yourself an ideologue of either camp.

On the other hand, it is considered that accreditation to the Economic and Social Council remains a constraint.

Mr. H.C.W. GUNDLACH, Chairman, International Accreditation Forum (IAF), General Manager, Dutch Council for Accreditation (RVA), Netherlands

And I think it's a more useful concept than sustainability, as I said.

To address this gap, the Economic and Social Council should serve as a high level development cooperation forum.

Why are you arguing with the manager?

Economists regard understanding the theory of comparative advantage as a test of professional competence. But are the incompetents say, the average person who believes that buying cheap imports from China destroys Western jobs always wrong?

Moleeds are what I believe the thing that will allow string theory to be proved.

And in fact, I think that's not entirely true anymore.

The panellists will include Mr. Richard Samans, Managing Director, Global Institute for Partnership and Governance, World Economic Forum Ms. Barbara Samuels, Senior Advisor, Financing for Development Initiative, World Economic Forum and Ms. Lisa Dreier, Associate Director, Policy and Governance Initiatives, World Economic Forum.

Acknowledging also that the Commission on Sustainable Development and the Economic and Social Council play a pivotal role as forums for the discussions on new and renewable sources of energy and sustainable development,

Acknowledging also that the Commission on Sustainable Development and the Economic and Social Council continue to play a pivotal role as forums for the discussion of new and renewable sources of energy and sustainable development,

31. Many participants considered that the permanent forum should be established at the highest level in the United Nations system, and most appropriately under the Economic and Social Council.

And I think, in many ways, the idea of resilience is a more useful concept than the idea of sustainability.

Report of the Economic and Social Council NGO Forum

The matter currently was under discussion in the Economic and Social Council.

By resolution 2003 15, the Council endorsed the agreed conclusions adopted by the Commission for Social Development with respect to its priority theme at its forty first session and in which the Commission invited the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council to continue to include consideration of the integration of economic and social policies as one of the thematic areas to be addressed in future debates.

Successful popular economics involves the reader or listener, in some sense, as a collaborator. That, of course, means that economists must be willing to include new and original theories that are not yet received doctrine among professional specialists.

We believe that the peacebuilding commission must be related both to the Security Council and to the Economic and Social Council.

I thought Freedom Road was just supposed to benefit the economy.