Economists And The Holy Grail

Ben Benanke says finding the true cause of the Great Depression is the Holy Grail of macroeconomics. The Wall Street Journal had an article called Economists' Grail: A Post-Crash Model.

A paper I wrote called Economists, Parsifal, and the Search for the Holy Grail that was published in the Journal of Economic Issues.

A longer version of the Journal of Economic Issues article

A Spanish version that was published in Colombia

Here is the abstract:

"Modern economists behave like Parsifal. He is a poor and innocent boy who becomes a knight for King Arthur, finds the Grail Castle and eventually replaces the Fisher King as the guardian of the Holy Grail. He has to widen his consciousness and travel beyond his station as a naive fool to discover himself and to reconcile the conflicting aspects of his psyche. Economists should take Parsifal as a model and expand their consciousness to remedy their cynicism and despair, and enliven their field."