Raghuram Rajan, an economist who sounded a warning ahead of the 2008 financial crisis, says the US isn’t in a full-blown financial crisis yet, and could avoid a repeat of what happened 12 years ago by moving decisively to contain the coronavirus and the economic fallout. Such action, however, needs to come from legislators and finance ministers, not central bankers.

Rajan, who helped stabilise India’s economy as former head of the Reserve Bank of India, now teaches finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School. He has argued for a global response to the coronavirus pandemic.