Prime, Policy Research in Macroeconomics

The following appeared in Nature magazine on 17 June, 2020 Economic researchers neglect the role of financialization in global existential crises. Riddled with comorbidities, the current global monetary and financial set-up precipitates crises with increasing frequency. At first, these were on the fringes of the global economy; in 2007–09 they moved to its very core. Since 1971, national economies, and all our lives, have been shaped by this ‘system’,...

The following appeared in Nature magazine on 17 June, 2020 Economic researchers neglect the role of financialization in global existential crises. Riddled with comorbidities, the current global monetary and financial set-up precipitates crises with increasing frequency. At first, these were on the fringes of the global economy; in 2007–09 they moved to its very core. Since 1971, national economies, and all our lives, have been shaped by this ‘system’, which can be described only as...

The following are my notes for a contribution to the debate on the post-Coronavirus economy held in the European Union’s parliament on 15 June, 2020. (The Parliament was largely empty as many MEPs were still shielding or self-solating from the pandemic. ) Other contributors included: Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, Professor of Global Management, University of California, Berkeley, Daniela Gabor, Professor of Economics and Macro-Finance, Lex Hoogduin, Professor at the University of...

This article appeared on the Open Democracy site on 16 June 2020 On the weekend of 30 May Elon Musk – a billionaire with a net worth of $38billion – launched a rocket into space. This private venture was in contrast to President Kennedy’s ‘moonshot’ ambition of 1961-69 ­– one of the greatest mobilizations of public resources and manpower in U.S. history. Musk’s ostensible aim is to colonise Mars; but his ultimate purpose is to extract future rents from billionaires ferried...

A review of Richard Davies’s EXTREME ECONOMIES Survival, failure, future – lessons from the world’s limits416pp. Bantam. £20 (paperback, £9.99). Published in the Times Literary Supplement, 17 April, 2020. Economists are beginning to worry over what comes after Covid-19. The pandemic is having a devastating impact on the global economy, and many expect a prolonged period of depression. Will economies recover? And if so, how will they recover? Richard Davies’s Extreme...

Massimo Amato is Professor of Economics, Bocconi University, Milan. The full paper, whose key points this post seeks to summarise, can be downloaded here in pdf format. ForewordThis post sums up the results of a collective research [1] and aims at providing the fundamental elements of a feasible European Debt Agency (DA). The DA is meant to be charged with financing sovereign debts with advantages both for the Eurozone Member States (MS) and for the system as a whole. The...

As published on Progressive International  on Monday, 11 May, 2020 She said, "My name's Flo, and you're on the right trackBut look here, daddy, I wear furs on my backSo if you want to have fun in this man's landLet Lincoln and Jackson start shaking handsI reached in my pocket, and to her big surpriseThere was Lincoln staring her dead in the eyeOn a greenback, greenback dollar billJust a little piece of paper, coated with chlorophyllRay Charles, 1957.   Things are falling...

This brief piece by Ann Pettifor appeared in the New Statesman on 4 May, 2020. Top economists warn the UK not to repeat austerity after the Covid-19 crisis. Mariana Mazzucato, Robert Skidelsky, Ann Pettifor, David Blanchflower and others on why the UK must not impose spending cuts in response to higher debt.It is clear that some commentators and think-tanks have not woken up to the severity of the debt-deflationary depression we are heading into. Delusional Tory austerity...

This note was published by Spain’s El Pais on 4 May, 2020 Central banks have adopted extraordinary, historically unprecedented measures to prevent this pandemic collapsing the globalised financial system. Trillions of dollars, euros and yen have been created ‘out of thin air’. As a result there is a fear of inflation – the erosion of the value of...

source: ONS with our own estimation for 2020 The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend (but not as a great surprise) that US GDP is likely to fall in the first Quarter –  before the main impact of the coronavirus hit – at the fastest rate since the global financial crisis: “This is just the beginning,” said Beth Ann Bovino,...