Few academics can aspire to transcend university boundaries, reach deep into a mainstream audience and find Westminster’s doors opening, inviting conversation with politicians. Thomas Piketty is now one…
The UK government’s senior adviser on science has made an entirely sensible call for researchers and policy makers to move the climate change debate towards workable strategies and solutions. The trouble…
Few economics books have caused quite the stir which accompanied the release of the English version of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty First Century. And there can be few who are not familiar with…
Since the 1950s, with a few rare exceptions in the 1970s, the middle class – all over the world – has been getting worse off. Specifically, the middle class’ purchasing power, as with that of the working…
Why does the economic policy pursued or proposed by the Left in Europe often seem so pathetic? The clearest example of this lies just across the channel. France is subject to the same fiscal straitjacket…
John Van Reenen, London School of Economics and Political Science; Anna Valero, London School of Economics and Political Science, and Joao Paulo Pessoa, London School of Economics and Political Science
The latest data from the ONS show that the UK’s productivity gap with other G7 nations is at its widest since 1992. This bad news comes against the backdrop of increased optimism as the economy seems finally…
Carsten Holz, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
The world’s second-largest economy has become the second-most watched and yet investors, politicians and economists are never quite clear what it is they’re looking at. China’s premier, Li Keqiang, is…
These days, if investors ever want a break from fretting over the euro zone or US jobs, they can always look east. China’s bubbling debt problem has become a source of genuine anxiety and a potential threat…
Something strange, or perhaps rather unexpected, has occurred over the past few years: the media and politicians alike have been highlighting the strength of British manufacturing. Stranger yet, perhaps…
In recent weeks there has been a spate of good economic news emanating from Ireland. The most significant was that in the latest 12-month period, employment increased by around 3%, an exceptional and surprising…
The Autumn Statement is a curious ritual. With the chancellor already delivering an annual budget based around a medium-term strategy, the autumn statement does not provide an opportunity for any major…
George Osborne long ago realised that policy programmes designed to avert crises do not win elections. What he has offered instead in his Autumn Statement is once again a simple trade-off of public austerity…
Many critics of the coalition government’s “Plan A” argue that it should deviate from deficit reduction plans to instead stimulate growth via additional infrastructure spending. Recent advocates of this…
The Australian economy grew 0.6% last quarter but Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT are now technically in recession, according to new Australian Bureau of Statistics data. The new figures…
Universities and macro-economists still haven’t found a way to solve the crisis of economics that was triggered by the global financial meltdown says economist Martin Wolf. Speaking to an audience of economics…
Two US economists have been named the 2011 winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics for their research on how economies are affected by macroeconomic variables such as GDP, inflation, employment and investments…