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For some economists, such as Prescott (1996), the renewed interest in growth over the last 20 years stems from their belief that business cycle fluctuations ”˜are not costly to society’ and that it is more important for economists to worry about ”˜increasing the rate of increase in economy-wide productivity and not smoothing business fluctuations’. This position has been publicly expressed earlier by Lucas in May 1985 when delivering his Yrjo Jahnsson lectures. There he argued that post-1945 economic stability had been a relatively ”˜minor problem’ especially in comparison ”˜to the costs of modestly reduced rates of growth’ (Lucas, 1987). More recently, Lucas (2003) has repeated this message using US performance over the last 50 years as a benchmark. Lucas argued that ”˜the potential for welfare gains from better long-run, supply-side policies exceeds by far the potential from further improvements in short-run demand management’. [Brian Snowdon. Howard R. Vane. Page 33. Modern Macroeconomics: Its Origin, Development and Current State. 2005]