IMF's new head economist is imaginative realist By Edward Hadas July 21, 2015 What the International Monetary Fund needs most in its economic counsellor is imagination and realism. With Maurice Obstfeld, who will take over the job from Olivier Blanchard in September, it has both. Of course, the distinguished Berkeley professor, member of the U.S. president's Council of Economic Advisers and leading textbook author has the needed technical skills. But conventional academic excellence is not enough to guide the international lender as it negotiates the intricate politics of the apparently endless Greek crisis. Nor can the old dogma deal with the greatest contemporary challenge to steady economic development: global financial excess. Blanchard already moved the IMF well away from its former identification with the Washington Consensus, which was based on an exaggerated confidence in free markets. His suggestion that the universally targeted inflation rate of 2 percent might be too low was highly unorthodox. Obstfeld is likely to go further in the same direction. http://blogs.reuters.com/breakingviews/2015/07/21/imfs-new-head-economist-is-imaginative-realist/ De acordo com o texto, o maior desafio da contemporaneidade para estabilizar o desenvolvimento econômico é: