debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
Pick a panel of scholars, as large as you like, who are able to sensitively understand social issues and ask them their opinion on the pros and cons of a major public intervention in Southern Italy. You will get a distinct response from each person interviewed, regardless of their political ideology. Conservative scholars, perhaps, will [...]
Today’s social-democrats are frightened by the notion of state-led investment. Keynes famously argued in the General Theory ([1936] 1974 p. 376) that maintaining long-term growth meant that the investment function must be largely – in his word’ somewhat comprehensively’ – taken over by the state. Indeed, he thought the state should directly or indirectly control [...]
In August 2008, when the global recession was casting its malevolent influence on the international economy, Olivier Blanchard, an eminent macroeconomist, issued the following proclamation: ‘the state of macro is good’.[1] He wanted to demonstrate a remarkable degree of ‘convergence in vision’ among the professional community of ‘modern’ macroeconomists in which the acrimonious battles between [...]
Professor Larry Summers of Harvard University discusses economic policy on both sides of the Atlantic and attacks the intellectual foundation of austerity. This keynote speech was recorded at the Policy Network conference ‘The Quest for Growth’ held at the London Stock Exchange on 6th September 2012.
The Eurozone as a single country Let’s begin by imagining that the Eurozone was a single country, like the United States. The US is currently undertaking significant austerity, even though there is no market pressure to do so. In fact, quite the opposite is the case – it is an excellent time to borrow to invest. So why are [...]
Paul Samuelson, the recently deceased doyen of what used to be mainstream macroeconomics, once said that God gave the economist two eyes. One for supply and one for demand. I was reminded of that quip today when within just a few minutes Eurostat sent two statistical updates that tell you if not quite all then [...]
What does it mean to be a ‘Keynesian’? This column argues that, like so much in economics, the label has become politicised. The cost is an impoverished policy debate that is resulting in millions of avoidable job cuts. I joined the UK Treasury in 1987 and subsequently went to Princeton, where I studied with Rogoff [...]
The latest statistics show that real household earnings in Britain fell by 3.5% over the last year (The Guardian 24 November 2011), a decline unprecedented in peacetime. What can be done to stop this unfolding disaster? While the private sector is dangerously in debt (“over-leveraged”), the public sector is not as I showed in my [...]
In a speech on 17 November, the leader of the UK Labour Party urged the Prime Minister to “change course” on economic policy or have another recession or worse. What would be a “new course” that effectively revived the economy? The answer derives from the cause. The stagnation of the UK economy is the result [...]
In the face of calls to cut short her holiday in order better to address the sovereign debt and economic crisis, Chancellor Merkel sought to maintain an image of outward calm, staying put in South Tyrol. But now she’s back, quoted on the front page of today’s Financial Times uttering various pearls of wisdom for [...]
A while ago, along with Paul Krugman, I had some fun with Alan Greenspan’s “markets work well, with notably rare exceptions“. The NRE he had in mind was, well, the Great Recession of 2008/9, which some are seeing now as the Little Depression of 2007-(hopefully)2012. But if exceptions can occur in time – markets as [...]
As things stand, the banks are the permanent government of the country, whichever party is in power. (Lord Skidelsky, House of Lords, Hansard Citation, 31 March 2011, c1359) In a recent piece, Robert Skidelsky and Felix Martin called for President Obama to establish a National Investment Bank (NIB).[1] If the argument makes sense for [...]
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