What really causes recessions? Tyler Goodspeed, former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers and author of Recession: The Real Reasons Economies Shrink and What We Can Do About It, joins Daniel Freeman to challenge everything we think we know about economic downturns. Drawing on over 300 years of economic history across Britain and America, Goodspeed demolishes the idea that recessions are the inevitable consequence of booms — arguing instead that economic expansions do not die of old age. They get murdered.
From the 2008 financial crisis to the dotcom bust of 2001, Goodspeed reframes some of the most consequential economic events in modern history. Was 2008 really caused by reckless mortgage lending and greedy bankers? Or was a record-breaking energy price shock the real trigger? Was 2001 the dotcom crash — or was it September 11th that tipped the US economy into recession? And what does 300 years of data actually tell us about speculative bubbles, creative destruction, and the moral stories we tell ourselves when economies collapse?
The conversation also turns to Britain’s chronic underperformance since 2008, and why the UK remains at least 30% poorer than the United States. Goodspeed argues this is not the unavoidable aftermath of a financial crisis — it is the direct result of policy choices on taxation, land use, energy costs and financial regulation. For policymakers who claim to want growth, his message is clear: the first rule, as with medicine, is do no harm.
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Recession is available now in bookshops on both sides of the Atlantic.
