A New Macropolicy Assignment
With central bankers rightly pessimistic about fighting recessions, maybe it is time to give that responsibility to politicians, while keeping central banks in charge of keeping inflation at target. At…
Johnson suspends parliament to force a crash out Brexit
On Brexit at least (and who knows what may be next) UK democracy has been suspended. Yesterday the Prime Minister drastically reduced the number of days parliament will sit until…
The Media and the Public
If you take note of the growing evidence that the partisan media can influence public opinion rather than simply reflect it, then this new book by Mike Berry (full title…
The economic cost of the Brexit decision that Leaver voters do not get to see
Those promoting Brexit are fond of saying that it’s not about economics. Gary Younge in the Guardian tellsus that there is nothing wrong with poorer people voting to be worse…
The big picture
I have wasted far too much of my time killing zombies. This is what Paul Krugman calls ideas or alleged facts that, despite being shown to be wrong countless times,…
How can Labour say it didn’t crash the economy
If my memory serves me correctly, one of the rounds of applause received in the UK election debate on Thursday was when Clegg said that Miliband should have apologised for…
Cyclically adjusted deficits and instability
Jean Pisani-Ferry, currently advising the French government and former director of Bruegel (the Brussels-based economic think tank) has written a heartfelt plea for more stability in the Commission’s estimates of…
Macro teaching and the financial crisis
Some macro textbooks (not all) are a bit like extensively modified code. You can see the structure of the original code, even after extensive software development. This can mean that,…