Democracy in Europe
The ability to print money is a precondition of sovereignty. It is also a cornerstone of modern financial and economic systems. For all the talk of money being created by banks, in a panic it is clear that the ...
Negative interest rates don’t work
I have argued that economists should be very wary about advocating steeply negative nominal interest rates. This is a case of basing policy on models which assume what they need to prove. If we assume that cha...
Tobin & the end of banking
I'm writing about this subject with some trepidation. Many economists who have entered the fray have made fools of themselves; and many who triumphantly point out their errors usually go on to make some of thei...
The effects of negative interest rates. A brief reply to Miles Kimball
Miles Kimball has developed a very intriguing idea. He wants there to be an exchange rate between physical cash and electronic money (deposits) and a steeply negative interest rate on deposits to stimulate spen...
Cashless dreams … Or nightmares?
Martin Sandbu wittily suggests that advocates of competing contingency plans for central banks resemble Pythonesque political factions. He thinks a compromise could be a marriage made in heaven. But as a paid u...
Abolishing cash: a short reply to Martin Sandbu
Martin Sandbu has written a typically measured and thoughtful response to Andy Haldane's reflections on abolishing cash and setting negative interest rates.
On the substantive point - that Haldane has ommitt...
Where next? A reply to Andy Haldane
Andy Haldane is one of the world’s more thoughtful central bankers. The concerns he lays out in his most recent speech warrant attention - particularly the deflationary winds blowing from Asia, as discussed by ...
The fair division of a windfall
An interesting debate is occurring over the ethics of granting the central bank power to make cash transfers to households. This is not an academic debate. I think one of the main stumbling blocks to this polic...
Myopia, ‘mathiness’, China, & Corbyn
A lot of intriguing debates have occurred in the last month or so that merit individual blogs, but markets have been preoccupying me, so I have been unable to write at length. In some ways, these four subjects ...
How Labour should respond to Corbyn
Jeremy Corbyn’s rise to prominence is revealing. It shows a Labour party bereft of intellectual leadership. Politics is crying out for inspiring policies - ambitious, radical policies, which positively address ...