Facing up to Libra

Libra is the name that Facebook, the global social network company, is calling its planned international digital currency.  What is Facebook’s purpose with this planned new currency? According to Facebook, Libra is “a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people”. In its statement, the company says that: “The world truly needs

Economics for the summer

Last week Martin Wolf, the FT economics journalist, listed the new economics books that he would recommend for summer reading. He started off with Austerity: When It Works and When It Doesn’t, by Alberto Alesina, Carlo Favero and Francesco Giavazzi, Princeton, RRP£27/$35.  Wolf commented that “this is an extremely important book. It uses empirical evidence to

Strikes in the Long Depression

Jorg Nowak, a fellow at the University of Nottingham, UK has just published Mass Strikes and Social Movements in Brazil and India:: popular mobilisation in the Long Depression.  Nowak argues that in the 21st century and in this current long depression in the major economies, industrial action is no longer led by organised labour ie

The heroes of finance and Powell’s put

At the weekend G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers in Japan, the world’s finance leaders tried to put a brave face on the situation.  Tension over the intensifying trade war between China and the US was the biggest talking point at the meetings. Officials also wrangled over wording for a final communique on

Keynes: socialist, liberal or conservative?

James Crotty is emeritus professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.  Along with his colleague Sam Bowles, he is one of the few radical heterodox economists to gain tenure at a leading American university. Crotty’s main contribution to economics has been to try and synthesise Marx and Keynes.  This ended up with Crotty

Global slump: the trade and technology trigger

Despite all the optimistic talk by President Trump about the state of the US economy, the latest data on economic activity and industrial production suggest that America is joining Europe and Japan in a sharp slowdown as we enter the second half of 2019.  And this is at a time when the trade and technology

India: another China or another Brazil?

It’s five years since the right-wing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Narendra Modi swept back to power in India’s Lok Sabha (parliament) elections.  Now in the world’s third largest economy (in PPP terms), over 800m Indians have voted in elections lasting six weeks to re-elect its leaders. The BJP ruled before, from 1998

Australia: luck running out?

Australia has a general election on Saturday.  The opposition Labor Party has been leading in the polls and given a redistribution of the seats in parliament that favours Labour, it is expected to gain office and defeat the incumbent coalition of the National and Liberal parties. The usual thing said about Australia’s economy is that

Inequality and risk – both rising

The US Federal Reserve governor Lael Brainard, in a speech in Washington, revealed the extent of rising inequality in the US.  Using the latest income and wealth data, she outlined that the incomes and wealth of working-class (the American establishments like to use ‘middle-class’) households in the US have been squeezed in the last 50

Productivity, investment and profitability

Radical economic historian Adam Tooze recently tweeted that “Whenever I see figures for the decline in the (advanced economies) AE productivity growth rate I am left puzzling: do we really have an explanation? Do we really have an explanation?” Well, I think we do.  As I outlined in a previous post, over the last 40