Liz Truss overlooked it. So did poor Kwasi Kwarteng. So did the Nobel Prize committee in awarding Ben Bernanke a share of the Nobel prize in economics last week. The “it” is an elegant and underrated academic paper that Bernanke published in 1983 titled “Irreversibility, uncertainty, and cyclical investment”. Although unmentioned by the Nobel committee, it has proved quietly influential in academic circles. Perhaps somebody should explain it to the current UK government.
To understand the basic idea, consider the following unusual bet. You pay $5 for a ticket to play. Then I toss a coin. If it comes up heads, you get $10, for a $5 profit. If it comes up tails, you get $4, for a $1 loss.
Would you like to play? Most people would be tempted by these attractive terms.