Author Archives: Tony Yates

Paul Krugman responds to Martin Wolf and John Cochrane arguing for narrow banking [allowing banks simply to take our cash and invest in risk free securities] in part by commenting that the banking crisis came and went quickly, and that … Continue reading →

Noah Smith and Ryan Avent got his debate going again, a conversation whose last incarnation was an exchange between Steve Williamson and Paul Krugman, essentially, sparked by Steve asserting that inflation was too low because Fed rates were too low.  … Continue reading →

In a recent FT article, Claire Jones reported on the decision by Manchester University to reject a proposal for a course on ‘Panics and bubbles’, the initiative of the Manchester students’ pressure group ‘Post Crash Economics‘ and sympathetic academics. On … Continue reading →

UK Finance Minister George Osborne’s Washington ‘I told you so’ speech  has prompted a thorough going over of the issue of what the recovery in the UK does or does not prove regarding the Coalition’s ‘austerity’ fiscal policy, by Chris … Continue reading →

The Fed recently made its workhorse model FRB-US downloadable, with a dataset, code, everything you need to take a close look at what Governors say and what the staff have been doing for them.  The Bank of England should do … Continue reading →

This post is prompted by reading in my twitter feed that Martin Wheatley of the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority had said that finance had ‘lost its moral compass’.  Sermonising like this is completely unhelpful in my view. Almost all in … Continue reading →

The Government has announced plans to drop the requirement that pension holders be forced to purchase annuities when their pension plans mature.  This will have the positive benefit of allowing people to have more control over their savings, to be … Continue reading →