There is a long list of culprits when it comes to assigning blame for the financial crisis. This column argues economists are among the guilty, having succumbed to an intellectual virus of theory-induced blindness. It adds this calls for an intellectual reinvestment in models of heterogeneous, interacting agents, following in the footsteps of other social scientists. This will require a sense of academic adventure sadly absent in the pre-crisis period.

This eCollection summarizes the views of leading economists about the path and content of budget adjustment that can help advance economies to move out of the crisis, and resolve the policy impasse that is unsettling the Eurozone.