An important step in making economic scholarship relevant to the post-crisis world may have been taken last week in Cambridge, UK. A number of economists that do not subscribe to the majority view of how the economy works met to consider what a ‘New Economics’ might look like. While new in several senses, the ‘New […]
Category: Business and Society
Is ‘economic activity’ always a good thing? The banks hit by the bonus tax have raised the spectre of lost incomes and tax revenue if they choose to relocate away from the UK. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has recently sought to justify the licence-fee by calculating the revenues its commissioning generates for independent production […]
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Banking Bonuses
I wrote a rather splenetic article for the Guardian Comment Is Free website last month. Subsequent events have, I guess, not really made me feel less angry!
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The Economics of Theft
A Church of England vicar has recently said it’s OK to steal from supermarkets if you’re hungry and desperate. This is against the law. Apart from the 8th commandment do we have any idea why? It’s annoying to be stolen from, certainly, but it’s also unpleasant and dangerous to be poor. The social, as opposed […]
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The Truth of Unequal Pay
There is at present an unprecedented wave of concern about pay disparities. We have the bankers’ bonuses, both main parties promising to limit high salaries in the UK public sector and a vigorous debate in Scotland about the high levels of pay of some Health Board managers. Last week, the New Economics Foundation (NEF) published a […]
After the banking crisis and the debacle surrounding the collapse of MG Rover, a British car manufacturer, it’s surely time for a rethink of corporate limited liability. The Phoenix Consortium, an ad-hoc partnership of four businessmen friends led by John Towers, extracted at least £9 million each from MG Rover, thanks to a sum […]
I’m interested to see that the Real World Economics Review (an e-journal for heterodox economists) now has a blog. They already have some interesting contributions, and I hope fertile discussion will follow!