In an extraordinary response to events unfolding on Wall Street and Capitol Hill, Harvard University convened a panel of six of its most respected faculty to discuss the credit crisis. The September 25 discussion revealed a lack of unanimity regarding the government’s planned response, but a strong consensus regarding the gravity of the situation.

Much of the discussion recounted the causes of the crisis and the events leading up to it, which we omit — our readers are, no doubt, all too familiar with them.  The more interesting dialogue surrounded the planned response and longer term future for the markets, which we provide below.  A full-length video of the panel is available here.

There six panelists were:

• Jay Light, the George F. Baker Professor of Administration and Dean of the Faculty of the Harvard Business School. He previously served as chair of its finance department.  He is a director of the Harvard Management Company, the Blackstone Group, and other organizations.
• Robert S. Kaplan, the Baker Foundation professor of management at HBS and former interim CEO of the Harvard Management Corporation.  He previously was vice chairman of Goldman Sachs.
• Elizabeth Warren, the Leo Gottleib professor of law at Harvard Law School and an expert in bankruptcy and commercial law, and the author of numerous books on a wide variety of legal topics.
• Gregory Mankiw, professor of economics and former chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors under George W. Bush. He previously served as an economic advisor to Mitt Romney during his Presidential candidacy.
• Kenneth Rogoff, the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics   He previously was chief economist at the IMF, and currently serves as an economic advisor to John McCain.  He is also a grandmaster in chess, but no longer plays competitively.
• Robert Merton, the John and Natty McArthur University Professor at the Harvard Business School and winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in economics. 
  

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