‘Cycles’: when the economy phases

10 January 2025

On Wednesday 8 January 2025, Thierry Aimar, senior lecturer in economics at the University of Lorraine, was the guest alongside Laurent Ferrara, Professor of Economics at SKEMA Business School and Chairman of the Comité de Datation des Cycles of the Association Française de Sciences Economiques (AFSE), on the ‘Entendez-vous l’éco?‘ programme, part of the “Le mot de l’éco” series broadcast on France Culture.

Can we model economic behaviour throughout history to predict the economic future? Is economists’ aspiration to understand and predict economic behaviour in order to better anticipate and prepare for it an illusion? Isn’t the reality check disappointing? What impact do the distortions between theory and practice caused by unpredictable exogenous factors have on cycle theories?

Thierry Aimar and Laurent Ferrara answer these questions in the episode entitled ‘Cycles: when the economy phases’.