Government Economics Service Conference
In 1931 Keynes remarked of a book by Hayek, ‘It is an extraordinary example of how, starting with a mistake, a remorseless logician can end in Bedlam’. If one thinks this through, it tells one all one needs to know about what’s wrong with economics.
The Northern Ireland Economic Conference, Belfast
I.
How much do people mind the deficit? Do they lie awake at night worrying about it? Do they have nightmares about it?
I tended to dismiss such thoughts as fanciful. Households and businesses, I thought, naturally worried about their own budgets, but not about the government’s budget.
I therefore tended to assume that the government had enough freedom over its own budget to do what it thought best for the country, without coming under undue popular pressure to ‘balance its books’.
Keynote Speech at FT Conference in Amsterdam
In its latest briefing note the IMF warned that world growth would slow in the second half of 2010 and the first half of 2011. Meanwhile the cost of Greek government debt has shot up again, despite the ECB rescue-package, and the IMF will soon inject another 2.5bn euros into the Greek economy. Finally, European trade unions are planning a winter of protest against cuts. These are just the latest glimpses of what is happening in the world economy.
Continue reading “Europe’s Debt Crisis and Implications for Policy”
Speech at EBRD Business Forum, May 21st 2007
Russia’s integration into the world economy has been based on energy. Energy is predominant both in its domestic economy and foreign trade. In 2006, oil and gas made up 40% of GDP, and 60% of Russia’s exports. Since 2000 rising oil export revenues have been the main driver of GDP growth, as the price of Urals oil rose from below $10 a barrel to over $60.
