Policy makers have learned from the mistakes of the 1930s

Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman will shortly be in town.  With Lord Richard Layard, he will be calling for more public spending and borrowing.  The two have issued a ‘Manifesto for Economic Sense’.  But is it? The opening sentences make dramatic claims: ‘More than four years after the financial crisis began, the world’s major advanced […]

We are all better off than we think

Apple’s iPhone5 has already smashed sales records.  The first day on which consumers could make purchases over the web, more than 2 million online orders were placed.  Little wonder that JP Morgan has estimated that sales of the iPhone5 could add as much as 0.5 per cent to American GDP.  These numbers have attracted criticism. […]

A Tale of Two Recessions: Grounds for Optimism

The economic news at the moment is mixed, and the impact of the 2007-2009 financial crash is far from over. But looking back into the past may give us something to feel cheerful about. There have only been two global financial crises in the past century, that of the early 1930s and the most recent […]

Why Can’t Debt Just be Inflated Away?

The debt problems which the UK and Europe currently face are essentially ones of political economy.  Basically, there is a lot of debt around and the simple question is: who is going to pay for it?  All the economic theory in the world does not get around this fundamental issue. Traditionally, bondholders paid.  The real […]

Ignore the IMF: Economic forecasts have a history of being unreliable

So the IMF has slashed its growth forecasts for the UK economy.  This august body has just pronounced that Britain’s economy will come to a virtual standstill.  Growth in 2012 will be just 0.2pc, compared with the IMF’s April forecast of 0.8pc growth.  It cut its 2013 growth forecast by the same margin to 1.4pc […]