What
is wrong with economics?
The Financial Times 21/12/00
Attacks on economics are as old as the subject itself. Yet the subject
is not so easily banished. If all economists were put painlessly
to sleep, human curiosity about matters such as the wealth of nations,
booms and slumps, or why some people are rich and others are poor
would remain; and the profession would re-emerge, with all its squabbles
and disagreements...more
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In
defence of earmarked taxes
The Financial Times 07/12/00
The British Labour government lost no time
in putting clear water between itself and the report of the Tax
Commission published by Labour's senior think-tank, the Fabian Society
("Paying for Progress"). It was wrong to do so. Like those of most
such reports, its specific recommendations are partly good and partly
bad. But it is the first comprehensive study of UK tax and spending
for a number of years and much of the analysis will be useful to
people of varying politics...more
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The
legacy of John Maynard Keynes
Review of John Maynard Keynes, Fighting for Britain, 1937-1946
23/11/00
With his third volume, mostly devoted to the
wartime activities of John Maynard Keynes, Lord Skidelsky has come
to the end of his monumental biography of the great British economist.
The work is illuminating on many different levels: for its contribution
to British social and cultural as well as economic history, for
its insight into the evolution of economic doctrines, and above
all as a fascinating portrait of a unique personality...more
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It could have been much
worse
On the UK Chancellor's pre-budget
report FT 09/11/00
When a British government is under intense populist pressure to
undertake irrational and imprudent policies, when an election is
looming and its popularity is only just recovering from an unexpected
dive, one does not expect huge enlightenment from any package of
fiscal measures. The test on such occasions is: how much harm has
been done?...more |
A
hot time for the emerald isle
The Financial Times 26/10/00
The experience of Ireland will provide hard evidence on the
economic case for Britain’s adopting the euro. The Irish economy
is, in many ways, more like the British economy than that of continental
Europe. A large proportion of its trade is with the UK. Its business
cycle is more in line with the US and British than the continental
one. In addition, its financial institutions are closer to the Anglo-American
than to the Rhineland model...more
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The
Holocaust industry
Review of The Holocaust Industry and The Holocaust
and Collective Memory
The horror felt at the Nazi crime of exterminating
six million European Jews, simply because they were Jews, surely
needs no explanation. The puzzling question is, in the words of
Prof Novick, "Why now?" Why should so much more have been done to
commemorate the Holocaust in the last 20 years than in the 35 years
after World War II, when more of the survivors, and far more of
their near relations, were still alive?...more
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Exports
and arms brief
October 2000
There are two aspects to moving out of the unedifying parts of the
arms trade. The first would be for the government to stop encouraging
it, whether by covert subsidies, twisting the law or the soft soap
of royal and ministerial visits. The second would be much tighter
controls on such sales...more
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Watch the dollar, not the euro
Financial Times 12/10/2000
Distance in time and space lends a little perspective. When I first began to discuss the high level of Wall Street (Viewpoint, May 13, 1999), the most widespread concerns related to the earnings and dividend yields, which seemed to be historically low even if allowance was made for the growth possibilities of the “new economyâ€.
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A credo for permanent politicians
Financial Times 05/10/2000
Amid all the talk of spin doctors, it is useful to have a book on the ethos and working rules of the permanent civil servants who are supposed to form the backbone of British government...more
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Protest against the protesters
Financial Times 28/09/00
There is plenty to protest about in the behaviour of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. As Jeffrey Sachs has argued (Personal View, September 26), the two institutions have become too much of a debt-collecting agency for western nations. Moreover, the World Bank directs many of its loans to creditworthy countries that could borrow in the market. It should become instead a direct grant development agency.
...more
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A case for neglecting the euro
The Financial Times 14/09/2000
One of the absurd habits of populist democracy is to blame the national government for everything that goes wrong in the world, and to expect that government to be able to cure the trouble painlessly. In no country is this habit further developed than in France, which makes the French reputation for logical thinking amazing. The government of that country consists of autocracy punctuated by outbreaks of mob rule.
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The strange passion for equality
The Spectator 16/09/2000
A hurdle which some of us face with even the most serious
political books is that they are written for people of the
author's own persuasion. Others are welcome to eavesdrop. But
there is little effort to persuade those outside the stockade.
These four books are written ostensibly for readers who are
either "on the left" or who believe in equality or who hold
both positions...more
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Lithuania's tough test for toleration
The Financial Times 02/09/2000
When I told my cab driver on the way to London Airport that I was going
to Lithuania he had no idea where it was, but suggested, "It's somewhere
on the Mediterranean, isn't it?". A Lithuanian tourist chief told me
that at a professional conference in London, most of the executives
she met were equally baffled...more
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A rational response to insecurity
The Financial Times 30/08/2000
Despite the fall in unemployment levels in North America and some European
countries in the last few years, the sense of job insecurity has, if
anything, heightened. Many researchers have found it difficult to unearth
statistical evidence that labour turnover is higher or that periods
in particular jobs are shorter than in earlier times...more
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Stumbling towards a good idea
The Financial Times 17/08/2000
A government adviser friend of mine always greets me with two questions:
"How do you think we are doing?" (meaning the economy) and
"Can't you see that we are moving towards a Basic Income?".
My answer to the first is "the economy is doing quite well"
- it can't all just be due to the measures of a government elected just
over three years ago. The answer to the second question is a little more difficult, but has
to be "Not quite"...more
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Britain's little economic miracle
The Financial Times 03/08/2000
The recent economic review of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research on the state of the British economy takes an interestingly different stance from its rivals. Like them, it forecasts a UK base rate peak of 6½ per cent - if only to guard its flank against what might be decided today. But whereas other reviews warn of dangers, the NIESR is more upbeat...more
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Fat years after the lean years
The Financial Times 20/07/2000
Tony Blair likes to say that the new UK spending review marks the distinction between the two main political parties: Labour is in favour of higher spending on public services while the Tories prefer tax cuts. But with respect, prime minister, this is not what the spending review shows at all, if examined with the barest minimum of historical perspective. Instead, it shows the semi-Biblical story of three lean years for public spending followed by four fat years. Or to put it more crudely: what goes down may sometimes come up.
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We've been mesmerised by Japan for too long
International Economy July 2000
No one country is "essential" to the health of the world economy. The USA most nearly meets the bill. Japan does not do so at all. Japan makes up less than 18 per cent of OECD GDP and just over 14 per cent of world GDP. It is also a much more self-sufficient economy than generally realised...more
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Why boring is sometimes best
The Financial Times 06/07/2000
Mervyn King, deputy governor of the Bank of England, has said that, in a fully transparent system, monetary policy decisions should come as no surprise. Ideally they should even be boring. The surprises should come from new data, according to this doctrine, which more and more central bankers are beginning to espouse...more
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An alternative text book
Review of
Economics, a New Introduction by Hugh Stretton
There is a surprising shortage of books either explaining
how economic systems work or attempting to explain
analytically real world events such as the Asian crises, the
travails of post-communist economies or even parochial matters
such as the ferocious disputes about British exchange rate
policy...more
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Time for a sceptical look at the
export drive
The Financial Times 21/6/00
The conventional wisdom of the postwar era is that exports are
unquestionably a good thing. This is an economic howler, fortunately
qualified by the fear that official promotional activities will be
self-defeating if all governments employ them....more
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The waltz motif of human
history
Review of
Road to Riches or the Wealth of Man by Peter Jay
Jay's
thesis is likely to be summarised under the slogan "government
matters", which, however unintentionally, sounds like a New Labour
sound bite. But many of the examples suggest that government matters
for the harm it can do. His real view is that economic advance
requires "positive action to supply certain conditions such as
monetary stability, physical security and a predictable and
accessible legal system that protects the person and his property,
settles his disputes and upholds agreements"....more
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The flaw of education, education,
education
The
Published: June 8 2000
There is an old story about an
American billionaire who was discovered to be unable to read or
write English. One brave interviewer asked him, seeing that he had
achieved so much, how much more he could have done if he had been
fully literate. His reply was: "I would have got the job of lavatory
attendant; maybe today I would have been a superintendent."....more
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The problems of a lower
pound
The
Financial Times 25/05/00
Discussion is often at its most
frantic when a problem is beginning to go away or even being
succeeded by its opposite. Talk about the overvalued pound has
reached a climax at a time when the trade-weighted sterling index
has already fallen well below the level of 108.9 forecast by the
Bank of England in its May Inflation Report for two years ahead.
Some of this depreciation reflects a modest recovery of the euro,
but most of it is due to the dollar's rise....more
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The poor need not always be with
us
Article in
Search (a Joseph Rowntree Foundation Journal), Issue 33, Spring
2000
According to the Bible, "The poor will ye always
have with you." The Bible need only be right if poverty is seen as
relative deprivation. In that case some people are always bound to
be poorer than others. The search for a perfectly equal distribution
- apart from being full of conceptual ambiguities - is in practice
likely to lead to hell on earth, with much bigger disparities of
power in exchange for relatively modest (if any) improvement in the
relative possession of the worse off.....more
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A brighter prospect for
Europe
The
Financial Times 11/05/00
There is a striking contrast
between the depreciation of the euro currency and the sharp turn for
the better in the behaviour of the actual euro zone economy. Another
striking contrast is between the dreadful corporatist rhetoric still
employed by so many EU enthusiasts and the more pragmatic policies
being followed by corporations and unions at ground level. ...more
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Productivity is not the
answer
The
Financial Times 27/04/00
I now want to turn some critical
attention to Gordon Brown, the UK finance minister, and his stress
on productivity. I am sure he realises that this cannot be a quick
solution to the problems of Britain's trading sector, but it
nevertheless seems to be his most important economic policy aim. Of
course productivity is important, but it is a much more problematic
concept than is generally realised, and is not a cure for all
economic ills....more
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In blood stepp'd in so
far
Reviews of
two post-mortems of the Balkan war in The Spectator
20/04/00
Judged by the effects on human suffering, the Kosovo
venture was a disaster. The war led to the double tragedy of the
mass expulsion of a million Kosovan Albanians and then their return,
bent on seeking revenge, despite KLA "disarmament"....more
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Beware the politics of
sterling
The
Financial Times 13/04/00
If there is one lesson to be
drawn from changing fashions in economic policy, it is that pursuing
any single objective to the exclusion of everything else leads to
big trouble sooner or later. That is true whether the target is
price stability, exchange rate stability or real growth....more
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What makes us
happy?
Review of
Luxury Fever by by Robert H Frank. Times Literary
Supplement 7/4/2000
One riposte to Frank is that economic
policy should not be concerned with maximising happiness. Instead of
vainly trying to look for the kind of happiness that might be
measured on a happiness meter, like a cat purring - it should try to
satisfy, to the greatest possible extent, individual preferences as
they emerge from market conditions, including the choice between
work and leisure....more
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A rather conservative
Budget
The
Financial Times 23/03/00
The headline judgment on Gordon
Brown's Budget must be that it is highly conservative, both in its
fiscal arithmetic and overall concept. This is not to deny that the
chancellor has been a radical reformer. But most of his reforms had
already been set in train, and the changes announced this week were
a combination of detailed adjustments and an allocation of the
benefits of economic success in a way that might be expected from a
prudent Labour government....more
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Watch the IT
stocks
International Economy March/April
2000
The IT revolution can best be regarded as another
milestone in the improvements of communications. Indeed it is
probably less importance from the point of view of globalisation
(that is making the world one economy) than the transatlantic cable
of the mid 19th century....more
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A stake in the country for
all
The
Financial Times 16/03/00
There has never been anything
wrong in itself with the idea of either private wealth or its
derivative, investment or "unearned" income. The main trouble is
that too few of us have it....more
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How to give the taxpayer a
say
The
Financial Times 02/03/00
The best surprise that Gordon
Brown, the chancellor, could spring on us on March 21 would be to
announce that this is the last traditional British Budget - the last
national sporting occasion on which the chancellor produces tax
changes like a rabbit from a hat and when analysts stay up all night
to understand what is really meant....more
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Job creation is not always a sign
of inflation
The Financial Times
16/02/00
This month's rise in base rates by one quarter of a
per cent to 6 per cent led to the first real cries of protest from
industry for many years. The remarks of Eddie George, governor of
the Bank of England, this week about the "ultimately unsustainable
growth of domestic demand" suggest that they are likely to rise
further. In that case business protests will get louder, especially
if the pound resumes its rise....more
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Blair should forget euro for 5
years
The
Financial Times 02/02/00
No director-general of the
Confederation of British Industry has ever said a truer word than
Digby Jones, when he warned this week that the sterile debate over
whether Britain should adopt the euro has distracted attention from
the more immediate issue of making the single market work....more
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Why arm sales are bad for
Britain
The New
Statesman 31/01/2000
The politicians' appeal to
competitive market economics when defending arms sales is bogus. On
this issue, genuine market economics should be an ally of political
radicalism....more
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Not by GDP
alone
On
Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen. The Spectator
31/01/00
His central message is that "freedom" is central to
development. It matters both as an instrument and as goal in itself.
Sen readily disposes of the myths about the superiority of so-called
"Asian values" which were at one time propagated by people like Lee
Kuan Yew of Singapore and gullibly accepted by too many Western
political and business leaders of authoritarian disposition....more
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Market euphoria cannot
last
The
Financial Times 20/01/00
The financial bubble is not
simply a sideshow in a booming US real economy. It is an essential
part of that boom. The private sector is running an unprecedented
financial deficit which can only be maintained because the soaring
value of financial assets - and to a lesser extent real estate -
provide the impression of ever increasing wealth. Should that change
the proverbial hard landing would not be far away....more
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On the "Terrible 20th
Century"
Review of
Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century:
Prospect Jan 2000
"It is almost certain that, as you
read this sentence, in some places people are being killed and in
others people are being tortured." This reflection may not be the
most cheerful one with which to embark on a new century, but it is
all too realistic....more
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