Mike Norman Economics

Keynote speech by Mr Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People's Bank of China, at the 2017 Lujiazui Forum "Financial reform and steady development from a global perspective", Shanghai, 21 June 2017. Bank of International SettlementsZhou Xiaochuan: The opening-up of Chinese economy - from manufacturing industry to service industryKeynote speech by Mr Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People's Bank of China, at the 2017 Lujiazui Forum "Financial reform and steady development from a global...

The rhetoric of ‘free markets’ is misleading. I certainly agree with this last point, as does anybody who (like me) has spent some time as an economic regulator (the UK Competition Commission in my case). Modern economies are highly regulated, and that goes for the Anglo-Saxons as much as anyone else. The Enlightened Economist Free’ markets Diane Coyle | freelance economist and a former advisor to the UK Treasury. She is a member of the UK Competition Commission and is acting Chairman of...

Epistemology rather than economics. Epistemological absolutism holds that there are absolute criteria and methods available for applying them to gain certain knowledge. Epistemological relativism holds that there are neither. Without getting into the weeds about this, suffice it to say that this epistemological distinction is not particularly relevant to the point that Professor Ruccio makes in the post, which revolves around mistaking ideology for fact. Here he is spot on and can be...

UK, not US. Few people had heard of Chris Heaton-Harris before October 2017. He is the Conservative MP for Daventry, a place most couldn’t pinpoint on a map. But he has now made himself notorious by writing to to a number of university Vice-Chancellors, asking for the names of the professors who are teaching about Brexit at their universities and copies of what they are teaching. On the surface, the MP’s letter is a simple information request. But it was not regarded as such by the people...

Professor Robinson considers Russiagate in the light of applying scientific method and finds the methodology wanting.IrrussianalityBasic scientific methodPaul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Not even Glenn Beck would draw so many far-fetched connections. This is my impression, too.Conventional economic studies are rigorous formally but based on questionable assumptions about the real world and little if any hard evidence.The sociology of Russiagate is similar in a different way since there is zero rigor. However, it is based on hugely ideological tacit assumptions and the conclusions are more allegation based on inference than chargeable offenses based on evidence.Both are just...

I take long-term historical studies like this is a large grain of salt, for lack of homogeneity and the difficulty in obtaining reliable data, for example, but it is interesting to look at anyway with caveats.What is probably most interesting about it now is that the Bank of England is apparently looking at this. Conclusion On aggregate, then, the past 30-odd years more than hold their own in the ranks of historically significant rate depressions. But the trend fall seen over this period...

The title is snark, of course. The only difference between the money system we’ve imagined and the one we are actually using is the terminology we apply to it. We call the government’s particular fiat-money “U.S. dollars.” We call the “Citizen’s Net Gain” our federal budget “deficit.” We call the savings accounts the government makes available to citizens and businesses “Treasury bonds”—and we imagine the government is “borrowing” the dollars being deposited in them. Finally, we call the...

Short review of Bill Mitchell and Thomas Fazi's Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World. IndependentActually the magic money tree does exist, according to modern monetary theory Youssef El-Gingihy

This article represents my initial comments on the question of the stability implications of locking interest rates at zero. Martin Watts, an Australian academic, had an interesting presentation at the first Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) conference (link to videos of presentations). Although MMT fits within a broad-tent definition of "post-Keynesian" economics, there are still sharp debates with other post-Keynesians. One topic of debate is the effect of permanently locking the policy...