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[M]ost economists were caught completely by surprise by the 2008 global financial crisis. ...[T]hey have not been able to come up with solutions to the ongoing aftermaths ...[E]conomics seems to suffer from a serious case of megalomania—how can a subject that cannot... explain its own area... claim to explain (almost) everything?
— Ha-Joon Chang
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "[M]ost economists were caught completely by surprise by the 2008 global financial crisis. ...[T]hey have not been able to come up with solutions to the ongoing aftermaths ...[E]conomics seems to suffer from a serious case of megalomania—how can a subject that cannot... explain its own area... claim to explain (almost) everything?" in the context of "" to mean that wisdom is timeless.
Source:
The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
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About Ha-Joon Chang
Ha-Joon Chang (Hangul: 장하준; hanja: 張夏准; born 7 October 1963) is a South Korean institutional economist specialising in development economics. Currently a reader in the Political Economy of Development at the University of Cambridge, Chang is the author of several widely discussed policy books, most notably Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (2002). In 2013 Prospect magazine ranked Chang as one of the top 20 World Thinkers.
About Ha-Joon Chang
Ha-Joon Chang (Hangul: 장하준; hanja: 張夏准; born 7 October 1963) is a South Korean institutional economist specialising in development economics. Currently a reader in the Political Economy of Development at the University of Cambridge, Chang is the author of several widely discussed policy books, most notably Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (2002). In 2013 Prospect magazine ranked Chang as one of the top 20 World Thinkers.
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