I think Karl Marx somewhere said that common sense was a poor guide to understanding the social world. If he actually said this (I can’t find a source) he meant it from the perspective of someone trying to show that … Continued
Despite persistently low inflation since the global financial crisis, there are plenty of commentators and investors who predict inflation will rise. They base this on i) the huge increase in central bank balance sheets arising from unconventional monetary policy “quantitative … Continued
LinkedIn is a very useful tool which I’ve used for several years. It has become essential for job seekers and for finding out more about people that you do business with. Since you can use most of the services free … Continued
About 20 years ago I was invited by the High Mistress of St Paul’s Girl’s School to give a talk to the sixth form. St Paul’s Girls is an academically selective and expensive school in the posh enclave of Brook … Continued
Experiments are the normal way in which science advances. You investigate whether A causes B and by how much, controlling for all of the other things that might make B happen. In the laboratory this is relatively easy. But in … Continued
I’ve written before about the dismal outlook for the western banks, suffering from overcapacity, increasing regulation and slow GDP growth (or continued contraction in the case of much of Europe). A new McKinsey report reinforces my pessimism. In particular McKinsey … Continued
It might seem straightforward to measure how much debt a government has. But it’s not that simple. First, we have to decide what is “debt”. We should obviously include debt securities and bank loans. But what about pension and insurance … Continued
One advantage of being an academic is that although you have no less work to do than people in “normal’ jobs, you have more choice of when to do it. So, after a long Sunday afternoon of marking, reviewing an … Continued
Since the definition of poverty is not having enough money, it might seem obvious that giving money to poor people is a good way to help them. But cash transfers, as they are known in the aid and development world, … Continued
I hadn’t ever wondered about why people save spare change in a pig-shaped china container. But the ever-interesting Federal Reserve Bank of New York blog Liberty Street has just told me. It seems that it originally had nothing to do … Continued
I make the point in classroom discussions of the US fiscal outlook that, simplifying only a little, the problem of US federal spending reduces to the problem of the US health care system. All rich countries face an increase in … Continued
Every country is unique but some are more unique than others. Japan, though quite obviously not located in the geographic western hemisphere, is part of “the west” as a group of rich democracies with advanced economies. Its inclusion is not … Continued
I’ve mentioned before the long running argument about whether The Wizard of Oz is in fact an allegory of the gold standard. Those who think it is point to the book having being written during the arguments about bimetallism (whether … Continued
An essential function of the financial system is paying for things. We take for granted the ability to move money from companies to employees, from customers back to companies and for a myriad of daily transactions. This aspect of the … Continued
It is supposed to be George Bernard Shaw who said that the UK and USA are “two nations divided by a common language.” Long established differences persist. Nobody in the UK says “gotten” anymore, even though it was normal English … Continued