Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything.
Paul Krugman
International datasets on productivity:
EU KLEMS (‘measures of economic growth, productivity, employment, capital formation, and technological change at the industry level for all European Union member states, Japan, and the US’)
CompNet (‘micro-based competitiveness dataset for European countries, unprecedented in terms of coverage and cross-country comparability’)
I recently started working at the Social and Economic Geography research group of Ghent University, in the team of professor Ben Derudder. We study financial networks in collaboration with the team of professor Sabine Dörry at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research.
But why am I at the department of geography instead of economics? In other words, what exactly is financial geography? I have to admit that I didn’t know until a couple of months ago.
This post is an attempt to describe what financial geography is, and what sets it apart from other fields that study finance.
Continue reading “What is financial geography?”How are economic statistics collected? Do economic models correspond to observable reality?
In a world where markets and politicians respond strongly to things like gross domestic product (GDP) figures and economic forecasts, these are important questions. Unfortunately, discussion often jumps directly to the interpretation of new data or the output of models. Students are rarely challenged to question what the data and the models represent.
I recently came across two great articles that dig into these issues. Continue reading “Economics is hard”
The Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement was a government policy in the People’s Republic of China during the 1960s and 1970s. From Wikipedia: “privileged urban youth [were] sent to mountainous areas or farming villages to learn from the workers and farmers there.”
A lot of economists and economic historians study aggregated data, e.g. gross domestic product, inflation, trade flows, or productivity.
Such a high level approach is valuable. However, the macro perspective by definition misses the details. A macroeconomist will typically explain productivity growth by referring to increases in (human) capital and total factor productivity. But how exactly do concrete changes lead to higher output? Continue reading “Down to the corporate side!”
The European support program for Greece ends today. Some called the program a bailout, others assistance or solidarity. Whatever you call it, the outcome has been abysmal.
You did it! Congratulations to Greece and its people on ending the programme of financial assistance. With huge efforts and European solidarity you seized the day.
— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) August 20, 2018
Greece fared worse than the US during the Great Depression. Emerging markets recovered faster from financial crises than Greece did. The only countries that have shrunk more than Greece in the past ten years are failed states like Libya, Yemen, and Venezuela.
“Congratulations” to all who were responsible for this “success”.
The South China Morning Post ran a series of articles about the Spanish trade between Asia and Mexico that started in the 16th century.
Nice illustrations describe the journey, the construction of the galleons, life aboard, silk, the Spanish dollar…
Start here: The China Ship – chapter one.
H/T to FT Alphaville for linking to the series.
Can we avoid another financial crisis? Ten years after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), we’ll hear the opinions of countless pundits about the likelihood of a new crisis. However, few commenters will be able to answer the question as profoundly as professor Steve Keen. Keen elaborated his views in the 2017 book with the appropriate title Can we avoid another financial crisis? Continue reading “Can we avoid another financial crisis?”
There’s a scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian in which rebels conspire against the Roman occupation. They ask themselves “What have the Romans ever done for us“.
Upon reflection, they realize that the Romans brought them sanitation, medicine, education, irrigation, public health, roads, a freshwater system, baths, public order, and peace.
I get the same feeling when I read articles about Big Tech. Continue reading “What has Big Tech ever done for me?”
I frowned the first time somebody introduced me as an ‘economist’. After all, I don’t have a piece of paper that says I’m an economist. But upon reflection I realized that it was true. In effect, I had indeed become an economist. How did that happen? Continue reading “How I became an economist”
Economists are fond of analogies to describe technical ideas.
Most of those analogies are confusing and/or useless. As I wrote in the introduction of Bankers are people, too:
Economists and journalists writing for lay audiences tend to use metaphors when explaining financial concepts. For example: ‘Cheap credit is like heroin. It’s addictive, and the economy can overdose from it.’ That may sound nice, but what does it even mean?