Category Archives: Uncategorized

The FT carried reports of the oddest central bank Governor speech I have ever encountered.  Koruda likened the BoJ’s recent quantitative easing policy to a confidence trick.  One that would fail as soon as people stopped believing, just like Peter … Continue reading →

The Greek crisis being a spectacle of financial warfare between creditors and debtor, rather than an exercise in benign social planning, it’s instructive to think about the difficulties posed by Greek democracy in reaching an agreement, through the jaundiced eyes … Continue reading →

I just came across this by Marty Feldstein, circulated by Matt O Brien on Twitter.  And it’s mighty confusing.  The premise of the article is the puzzle that the rapid expansion of the monetary base since the onset of the … Continue reading →

This post following exchanges on Twitter this morning.  It’s a link to a piece written by Ariadne Birnberg. It’s family-unit self-promotion, since Ari is my wife.  But relevant to the general theme of this blog, as it recounts the story … Continue reading →

I just had an email conversation with Greek macroeconomist Evi Pappa who is a Professor at EUI in Florence.  She made a point about tax collection that I had, for some reason, not grasped, even though it’s blindingly obvious. Right … Continue reading →

Paul Krugman swats aside my naive plea for a New Keynesian consensus on fiscal policy, suggesting that conservatives have always been opposed to Keynes.  But I stand by it.  I think our Conservatives [UK, big C] were tethered by those … Continue reading →

Niall Ferguson’s FT Op-Ed has sparked more rounds of artillery fire in the empirical macro wars over what can and cannot be read into the effects of austerity in the UK.  I come at this debate from the relatively more … Continue reading →

So, UK voters opted for redoubled deficit reduction while we are still trapped at the zero bound, followed by a spurt of spending towards the end of the next Parliament. I would have voted for the opposite, [although no-one was … Continue reading →

John Taylor has published Wall St Journal Piece rounding on Bernanke’s blog.  Some new points and some points repeated follow…. JT claims that the Taylor Rule emerged from ‘two decades of research on optimal policy’.  I think it’s important that … Continue reading →

A quick one to note this Civil Service blog by Nick Macpherson, a review of a William Keegan book, and mentioned in a Tweet recently by Danny Blanchflower. Danny picked it up to point out that this blog excuses Labour … Continue reading →