Bennett: U.S. economy remains resilient

Faculty | Feb 25, 2016 | Gabelli School of Business

Professor Paul Bennett

Echoing President Barack Obama’s recent State of the Union declaration that the U.S. economy is the strongest and most durable in the world, Fordham Professor Paul Bennett said traumatic problems such as terrorism probably would not affect American markets very much, according to a published report.

Bennett, a former economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the New York Stock Exchange, said in an article published on the Fordham News website that the U.S. economy and markets have withstood a number of catastrophic events such as the Great Depression, the recession of 2008 and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Throughout each, markets continued to function.

“Clearly the markets performed badly in the wake of the [Sept. 11] attacks but they came back pretty quick,” Bennett was quoted as saying. “The New York Stock Exchange continued to function in the 1930s even after prices were very depressed and the U.S. economy was in the doghouse.”

While the study of economics and research has burgeoned in the United States, the field remains inexact, said Bennett, who teaches finance and business economics at the Gabelli School of Business.

“The reason all these fancy models don’t work so well is because there’s a randomness to human endeavors you really can’t forecast,” he said. “Still, I don’t think it’s just an accident that the U.S. economy has been stable.”

Read the full article here.