Macroscopic

I have long been fascinated by the methodological debates in economics, particularly those in macro (which have until recently exclusively dominated debate since Keynes). This was in fact how I became interested in economics in the first place, via perhaps the classic debate in macroeconomics (at least in popular culture) - the Keynes vs. Hayek/monetarist debate of the 1930s in the context of the Great Depression. Speaking from my own experience, it seems to me that these sorts of debates appear to capture the imagination of students new to a subject, and so there is certainly a place for them in economic pedagogic. I found the same to be true studying political theory, where first year students are usually introduced to political concepts through the prism of age-old grand debates between Liberalism, Socialism and Conservatism. At present, since the Great Recession in 2008, the flavour of the month has very much been the methodological lambasting of economics, and macroeconomi...

 I have become increasingly conscious that this blog contains scant macroeconomic analysis, perhaps making the subtitle misleading.  This piece therefore intends to summarise the findings from my recently submitted undergraduate thesis, but will hopefully still be accessible. I recently submitted my undergraduate dissertation, entitled: 'The UK Phillips Curve Since the Great Moderation: A Single-Equation Econometric Analysis'. The basic idea was to employ the widespread single-equation approach to the Phillips curve in analysing UK macroeconomic data during the Great Moderation, the Great Recession and thereafter. But why was this analysis necessary? First and foremost, as Simon Wren-Lewis has recently argued, the Phillips curve represents a fundamental economic intuition: when more people are in work, aggregate demand is stronger, meaning it is more likely to be profit-maximising for individual firms to raise prices, leading to inflation. A.W. Phillips, in his seminal 19...

Having first written about a 'post-truth' world a while back now, I have nevertheless been surprised in the following months that the term has become common currency so quickly, even finding its way into popular discourse. I want to argue here that the advent of 'post-truth' and the collapse of a deference toward expertise is an unintended consequence of Neoliberalism and its appeal to a particularly crude and ill-defended subjectivism, whose triumph led to the defeat of Social Democracy and a transformation of the political landscape. Evidence from Labour's performance in Britain after two general election defeats, and more worryingly Jeremy Corbyn being the first Labour leader to never  achieve positive poll ratings, appears to confirm that this is not something that is about to be reversed. Firstly, a word about subjectivism in this context. In moral philosophy, subjectivism is effectively the idea that there are no moral norms to which individuals have a duty ...

With the Conservative Party Conference beginning yesterday in Birmingham, there is no doubt that anyone tuning in to the news over the next few days will be subjected to the annual, tiresome jubilant exultation of this current government's previous successes, basking in a honeymoon period that is set to continue indefinitely as long as the opposition is viewed by the electorate as incompetent, both intellectually and practically, which seems set to continue. Forgive me for not posting any other blogs on other political party conferences (though as this is not the BBC, balance is not a priority!), but there is a certain aspect of the current Conservative administrations which really grinds my axe. No, it is not the fact that the Conservative Party appears to pick and choose precisely what it is conservative about, nor the fact that it is no longer 'conservative' in any philosophically respectable sense, instead smuggling a form of libertarianism in by the back door (indeed J...

(I am conscious that, although the sub-heading of this blog quite clearly states 'macroeconomics' as its primary focus, there has been precious little for the reader tuning in for any comment upon such issues! My apologies -  this entry is an attempt to rectify that...well, to some degree.) Inequality, and its perception in the public eye, has seemingly become one of the key policy issues of our time. Indeed only today, the World Bank has renewed its drive against 'rising inequality' in the world, and Theresa May heads to the Conservative Party Conference with the soundbite - "A country that works for everyone". Headline figures, such as those published by Oxfam  last year, shocked many and have stoked public opinion in the direction of actions against the global super-rich. The publications of dozens of bestsellers, such as Joseph Stiglitz's The Price of Inequality (2012), Wilson and Pickett's The Spirit Level (2010),  Danny Dorling's Inequality...

On a recent visit to Prague, I came across the following passage from one of the most important literary figures of the 20th century, the modernist Franz Kafka, worth quoting in full:  "The war has led us into a labyrinth of distorting mirrors. We stumble from one fictitious vision to another, bewildered victims of false prophets and charlatans who, with their cheap recipes for happiness, merely cover our eyes and ears, so that, because of the mirrors, we fall from one dungeon to another, like through open trapdoors".  Whilst writing in a different era, in an entirely different culture and context, and obviously slightly polemic, Kafka's words seem strangely to resonate with a growing trend in politics today - what has recently been labelled 'post-truth' politics.   Brexit is widely agreed to have ushered in a new age in British politics. Yet it seems more appropriate to regard it as symptomatic of a new period which began earlier, with the Financial ...