Lazear writes:

Indeed, that was the expectation [that the economy was in rapid catch-up mode and would eventually regain all that had been lost]. As economist Victor Zarnowitz of the University of Chicago argued many years ago, the strength of the recovery is related to the depth of the recession. Big recessions are followed by robust recoveries, presumably because more idle resources are available to be tapped. Unfortunately, the current post-recession period has not followed the pattern. The 2007-09 recession was induced by a financial crisis and some, most notably economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff authors of “This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly”, argue that financial crises pose more difficult recovery problems than do policy-induced recessions.

After recounting the Reinhart-Rogoff thesis, Lazear essentially dismisses it, apparently in favor of John Taylor’s argument that the crisis was Fed induced.I want to take exception to the argument that the expectation was for a rapid recovery.

via Econbrowser: The Recovery According to Ed “We are not in a recession” Lazear.