I’ve written and taught before on the problem of obsolete and decrepit infrastructure in the US (and UK). Each trip to New York confirms, depressingly, that things are getting worse. Even walking along Fifth Avenue you notice the uneven roads, … Continued
The late Professor Wynne Godley of Cambridge University, used to teach that one must be very clear about stocks (amounts of things defined at a point of time) and flows (volumes defined over a period of time, usually a year). … Continued
I was interested to see that the Grant family of Dufftown, Banffshire, in Scotland are collaborating on an MBA with Strathclyde University. The Grants are more familiar as the owners of Glenfiddich, the world’s best selling single malt whisky. And … Continued
On this morning’s BBC Radio Four “Today” programme, a generally unimpressive interviewee from HSBC said that “you don’t solve a debt problem by borrowing more” or something to that effect. He also used that dreary cliche about kicking the can … Continued
There is a growing view that if the Eurozone governments could come up with a large enough financial bazooka, it would stop the markets in their tracks and restore confidence. That view is nicely punctured by Simon Johnson (former Chief … Continued
British people have been known to play a rather childishly condescending game called “name five famous Belgians”. Part of the problem is some people thought to be French turn out to be Belgians in fact (such as TinTin creator Hergé). … Continued
In my Financial Institutions and Products course on the MFin, I give a brief introduction to national accounts and a way of thinking about macroeconomics that is relatively simple but allows us to explain a lot. It draws on the … Continued
President of the EU Commission, José Manuel Barroso, recently proposed a “Tobin tax” for the EU. Named after the brilliant economist James Tobin, this tax is on transactions in financial markets. Its deceptive attraction is that it is levied at … Continued
The sacking of Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin yesterday might not seem very important, just another casualty of Kremlin politics. But the Peterson Institute of International Economics offers an insightful and rather depressing account of how this means Putin is … Continued
An excellent column by Martin Wolf in the Financial Times is reduced to its essentials by Paul Krugman. And yes, I’m more pessimistic than when I wrote about the Euro problems before.
A long standing theme in macroeconomic policy is the question, when is it best for policy makers to be tied to a rule and when should they have freedom to decide what to do (“discretion”). It’s easiest to see why … Continued
The ever excellent Peterson Institute for International Economics has a blog post today on the solution to the USA’s crumbling transport infrastructure, namely tolls. Resistance to raising taxes makes it all but impossible for the federal or state governments to … Continued
It’s nice to see the Chinese government making constructive noises about helping the Eurozone and Italy in particular, if only because I speculated about Beijing coming to the rescue earlier this year in class. I also put the idea to … Continued
Since I last blogged back in June, the flow of bad economic and financial news has turned into a torrent. Banks have shed jobs, markets have fallen, confidence in governments is even lower than before, the ECB has acrimoniously lost … Continued
Three Eurozone countries are being “bailed out” at present: Greece, Ireland and Portugal. In each case the country’s government has been lent money by public sector organisations (IMF, European Central Bank (ECB) and EU member states) because the private markets … Continued