A couple of weeks ago Martin Wolf blogged on the way in which modern macroeconomics has neglected the explicit and integrated treatment of the financial sector. The consequences of this omission have turned out to be of enormous practical significance. It left analysis mostly blind to a range […]
One of the topics I’ve revisited regularly on this blog over the last three years is the nature of economic knowledge and economic analysis. I have brought together nineteen of these blogposts as a collection of essays on the philosophy, ethics and methodology of economics. The essays touch on questions […]
Discussion of the need for the reform of economics in the post-crash world continues to gather momentum and prominence in parts of the econosphere. Wendy Carlin set out a case for change at the FT (£) on Sunday, while a group of post-Keynesian economists stuck their head above the parapet […]
One of the most intriguing questions facing the merry band of wanderers interested in the philosophy and history of economics is how mainstream economic approaches appear to have emerged relatively unscathed from the Global Financial Crisis. Casual observers might well find this a bit of a puzzle. A […]
If you were entertaining any idea that changes to property and land taxes could help to curb the volatility of the UK housing market then just stop it. That is the message of a new report Taxing Issues? released by the Policy Exchange this week. This is a […]
A couple of weeks ago Chris Auld’s blog carried a post entitled 18 signs you’re reading bad criticism of economics. Auld is seeking to help the reader differentiate bad criticism from ‘solid’ criticism. The post generated plenty of debate below the line and was retweeted into my timeline […]
Mathematics brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis. Attributed to Kenneth Boulding From a couple of posts in the Guardian over the last week you could get the sense that the move to recast economics is gathering momentum. Last Thursday the emergence of the Post-Crash Economics […]
When I first studied macroeconomics the Stagflation era of the 1970s and the death of Keynesianism were still being quite hotly debated. They were still contemporary events. Well, they were contemporary events in the way that the election of Tony Blair is a contemporary event for us today […]
In today’s Telegraph Chris Grayling goes on the offensive. And his article certainly is offensive. It’s an offence against nuanced debate for a start. Grayling’s argument in summary is that Britain is in “a global race” that is getting tougher. The Conservatives “support wealth and job creators” and […]
The more I think about economic policy the more I think that there isn’t a big enough dose of interpretivism applied to it. This thought recurred yesterday reading George Osborne’s set piece speech in which he, as Isabel Hardman of the Spectator put it, “trashed” Plan B. I […]
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