What have we learned this week? Remarkably little. Economists have been wrestling with real-time economic data that has become progressively less reliable as structural change has swept the economy. Now the aftermath of the first bank runs of the Twitter era only adds uncertainty. The future depends on two hard-to-predict behaviors: will bank investors and depositors keep moving their money? And if they do, will loan officers respond by tightening lending standards? Central banks will know what is happening before markets do.
