Introduction:

The contribution by Karl Aiginger also presents a detailed choice of measures that can ex ante increase the resilience of economies, which is particularly important given that the policies applied after a crisis has started are limited by their implementation speed and structural content. These regulatory proposals are embedded in a discussion of important stylised facts about the current crisis, the role of economic policy and what we could learn from the policies applied. The author then makes the point that a future-oriented stabilisation policy should rely on a broader set of measures to make economies more resilient ex ante, and to provide the necessary conditions for making anti-crisis policy feasible, if the next crisis should occur. The chapter also assesses the effect of the policy reaction to the crisis and how it can be seen as a triumph for the Keynesian approach of an anti-cyclical policy. Furthermore it outlines what a Keynesian approach to the crisis means for the exit period.