LONDON – With all the protectionist talk coming from US President Donald Trump’s administration, it is surprising that no one has mentioned, much less sought to invoke, an obvious tool for addressing persistent external imbalances: the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement’s “scarce-currency clause.” That clause, contained in Article 7 of the agreement, authorizes countries, “after consultation … Continue reading Resurrecting Creditor Adjustment
Author: Robert Skidelsky
Economist and member of the House of Lords
Germany’s Hour
LONDON – Who runs the European Union? On the eve of Germany’s general election, that is a very timely question. One standard reply is, “The EU’s member states” – all 28 of them. Another is, “The European Commission.” But Paul Lever, a former British ambassador to Germany, offers a more pointed answer: Berlin Rules is the title … Continue reading Germany’s Hour
“Never explain, never apologise”: a review of David Kynaston’s history of the Bank of England
David Kynaston's Till Time's Last Sand reveals how the Bank's relationship with government—from the gold standard to the Crash—have shaped the nation's economy since 1694 David Kynaston is a wonderful social historian, with three massive volumes on post-war Britain and many others to his name. He has been a leading practitioner of “history from below,” … Continue reading “Never explain, never apologise”: a review of David Kynaston’s history of the Bank of England
Stylised Facts
Published in Acta Oeconomica, Vol. 67 (S), pp. 31–35 (2017) I don’t want to say too much about Nicky Kaldor’s actual stylised facts, but about the methodological implication of the stylised facts approach. Paul Samuelson famously said, “those who can do economics, do it; those who can’t, babble about methodology”. Kaldor could certainly do economics, … Continue reading Stylised Facts
A Trip Through Putin Country
VLADIVOSTOK – Russia’s Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) railway “can be hardly named as a popular tourist attraction,” says one tourist website of the some 2,000-mile railway traversing Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East. “Most people even never [sic] heard of it.” The BAM’s older rival, the Trans-Siberian Railway, is certainly more popular. Since opening in … Continue reading A Trip Through Putin Country
The Protocols of Donald J. Trump
LONDON – It is an odd quirk in the history of logic that the blameless Cretans should have given their name to the famous “liar paradox.” The Cretan Epimenides is supposed to have said: “All Cretans are liars.” If Epimenides was lying, he was telling the truth – and thus was lying. Something similar can … Continue reading The Protocols of Donald J. Trump
How would Keynes have analysed the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009?
Published in Money in the Great Recession: Did a Crash in Money Growth Cause the Global Slump? [Ed. Tim Congdon] In recent years some monetary economists have voiced scepticism about aspects of the Keynesian revolution, particularly the importance of the 1936 General Theory relative to Keynes’ entire corpus.1 These sceptics have performed a valuable service by … Continue reading How would Keynes have analysed the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009?
Britain’s Deepening Confusion
LONDON – “Enough is enough,” proclaimed British Prime Minister Theresa May after the terrorist attack on London Bridge. Now, it is clear, almost half of those who voted in the United Kingdom’s general election on June 8 have had enough of May, whose Conservative majority was wiped out at the polls, producing a hung parliament … Continue reading Britain’s Deepening Confusion
Austerity vs Stimulus: The Political Future of Economic Recovery
Edited by Robert Skidelsky and Nicolò Fraccaroli Published by Palgrave Macmillan, 2017 ISBN 978-3-319-50439-1 Read reviews at: Financial Times (by Yuan Yang) Financial Times (by Barbara Casa Lukac) Buy from Palgrave (including individual chapter downloads) Buy on Amazon
The Varieties of Populist Experience
Emmanuel Macron’s decisive defeat of Marine Le Pen in the French presidential runoff was a major victory for liberal Europe. But it was a battle, not a war. The idea that one in three French citizens would vote for the National Front’s Le Pen was inconceivable only a few years ago. Commentators have affixed the … Continue reading The Varieties of Populist Experience
Robert Skidelsky 