Prime, Policy Research in Macroeconomics

Fixing the roof whle the sun shines? (Photo: Jeremy Smith) This post was written as introduction to the very recently published book “Discourse Analysis and Austerity: Critical Studies from Economics and Linguistics”, edited by Kate Power, Tanweer Ali and Eva Lebdušková. Published by Routledge, it is...

Image: Robert Triffin (1911-1993), influiential adviser on original European Payments Union. Via https://www.c2dh.uni.lu/ A new European Clearing Union would restore a common purpose to the European project and help defeat the rising ride of authoritarianism.This article is cross-posted from Open...

Whether the UK finally leaves or remains a Member of the EU, progressives are generally united in viewing the existing Treaty and legislative rules on economic policy as dangerously dysfunctional. In their second joint paper on the theme, emeritus Professor John Weeks and PRIME co-director Jeremy Smith set out proposals for “Economic Guidelines...

On Wednesday (6th March) PRIME’s co-director Jeremy Smith was invited by TRT World TV channel to take part in their Roundtable discussion on the future of the euro and eurozone, hosted by David Foster.  His co-panellists were Valentina Romei, statistics journalist at the Financial Times, Vicky Pryce, Chief Economics Adviser to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), and via skype from France, Philippe Waechter, Chief economist of Ostrum Asset Management. General...

I’ve just been updating our data for GDP per head of population (from the OECD database plus adding the ONS estimate for 2018) and noticed a startling fact. The age of austerity, starting with the 2010 Coalition government, and on to the Cameron / May governments, has to date been the worst since records began for annual change in GDP per head . The average increase in GDP per head of population, from 2010 to 2018, inclusive is lower than the decade 2000 to 2009, i.e. the...

The Berlaymont building, Brussels HQ of the European Commission, refracted. Image copyright Jeremy Smith This article is cross-posted from Open Democracy, first published 17th January 2019. It follows up his earlier article from December, “Labour's Brexit trilemma: in search of the least bad...

The Brexit referendum provided conclusive evidence that economics is inherently political. There was nothing scientific about any of the campaign promises or economic forecasts. Instead, in the run-up to the referendum Brexiters stressed the importance of the domestic labour market and blamed immigrants for the post-crisis slump. They ignored the costs of exiting a huge EU market in goods and services, and of cutting off the long supply chains of British firms. Remainers...

This is an extract from a chapter in Economics For the Many (Verso, 2018) edited by Rt. Hon. John McDonnell MP.  The chapter was written in August, 2017. If we are to secure a sustainable, stable and liveable future for the people of Britain, then implementation of the Green New Deal will be vital. Not just for the sake of the ecosystem, but also for the sake of rebuilding a stable, sustainable economy. The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling...

The main body of the draft Withdrawal Agreement is certainly long and detailed – a tribute to the efficiency of the EU’s legal services – but it mainly contains the sort of provisions one would expect for the terms of the separation, and for issues that straddle the departure timeline.  There is a transition phase to 31 December 2020, which can be extended, when EU law continues to apply, and the European Court of Justice still has jurisdiction. Citizen’s rights (relating to...