real utopias

econThe weekend meeting of the finance ministers of the top 20 economies in the world in Shanghai, China was a dismal affair.  Before the meeting, the IMF painted a grim picture of the state of the global economy.  In its, Global Prospects and Policy Challenges, the IMF economists warned that it would be reducing its forecasts for…

The debate within mainstream economists and between those economists working for financial institutions continues.  The stock and bond markets appear to be pricing in the real possibility of the US economy dropping into recession (as defined by two consecutive quarters of contraction in real GDP) in 2016. However, the majority view of mainstream economics is…

A decline in competitiveness is the same thing as an appreciation in the real exchange rate, and this makes consumers better off.

For the fifth time in seven years Japan is back in recession, with GDP shrinking by a further 0.2% in the third quarter. Meanwhile, inflation has fallen from more than 2% to zero in just over six months. This is certainly not the first time that Japan has ‘gained’ a recession/deflation status: the growth dynamic of …

Professor Kevin O’Rourke FBA delivers the Keynes Lecture in Economics at the British Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences in London on 7 October 2015. Prominent economists have recently revived the hypothesis that ‘secular stagnation’ – negligible or zero economic growth – could lead to permanently depressed economies, in the absence of appropriate policy counter-measures. …

Niall Ferguson begins his rejoinder to my rejoinder to his interpretation of the results of the United Kingdom’s recent general election by citing an apocryphal Keynes quote: “If the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?” But should the fact that the British economy grew last year by 2.6% have caused Keynesians to change their minds? Would it …

First, it reckons that global capitalism will remain in a depression. The IMF says that “a large share of the output loss since the crisis can now be seen as permanent, and policies are thus unlikely to return investment fully to its pre-crisis trend”. While potential growth in advanced economies will tick up in the next five years, it will remain well below levels before the financial crisis. Emerging nations will see their potential growth decline over the same period.