How much will other Europeans lose if Greece exits the euro? Will the ‘contagion’ spread to Italy, Portugal or Spain? Is this as much of a political as an economic crisis? Ahead of this weekend’s crucial referendum, these were among the questions put to Dr. Thomas Ziesemer — one of 70 Dutch economists who saw this coming back in 1997. From a purely economic perspective, how much will other Europeans lose if Greece exits the euro? TZ: It will be around 1000 euro per person, at least i...
For a long time, the divide between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ economies has been wide and persistent, giving rise to development economics as a specialised field. Yet with economic interactions between nations rising strongly over the past decades, economics in a broad sense needs to be able to deal with the global environment in which all economic agents operate. Evolutionary economics seems well suited to deal both with the salient long-run macro aspects of the globa...
Nobel laureate John Nash — who died on 23 May — stands in the same line as Smith, Ricardo, Walras and Keynes in having shaped economic thinking. But he was even more, argues Prof. Shyama V. Ramani in this tribute to the genius of game theory. Unlike other giants of economic philosophy, Nash has profoundly influenced the evolution of scholarship in artificial intelligence, evolutionary biology, mathematics, psychology, management science and all the social sciences. His ideas are mani...
In an earlier post, PhD fellow Ayokunu Adedokun outlined a bold agenda for the president-elect — issues that he says are key to long-term peace, security and inclusive development in Nigeria. In this second post, he looks at energy and economic reforms. Diversification of the economy Under President Jonathan, Nigeria rebased its gross domestic product (GDP) from 1990 to 2010. This resulted in an 89% increase in the estimated size of the economy. As a result, the country now has the largest...
Last week’s UK elections put the Conservative Party firmly back in power. What does this mean for the ‘man on the street’, for teachers and carers? To clarify the economic backdrop, PhD Fellow Mary Kaltenberg examined wage distributions across the UK. The story she found is stark: a little over a third of the country are in the top earners bracket, while just under a quarter are stuck on — or below — the minimum wage. My first stop was the UK Office for National Sta...
Some Western policymakers see China as a threat to their work in Africa. But when taking a dynamic perspective, as in this working paper, Chinese and Western activities can be seen as complementary. In this way, an entirely different picture emerges. This paper discusses the entry of China into the game of foreign finance in Africa. It analyses the scope, destination and sectoral distribution of Chinese financial flows and trade in comparison with Western patterns and trends of aid, foreign dire...
There was a full house for the latest Charles Cooper memorial lecture, given by Professor Sidney G. Winter, former Chief Economist of the US General Accounting Office. Professor Winter spoke at length about ‘Dynamic Capability — The Concept and How It Helps Us Understand Economic Change’, in a session rounded off by more questions than time allowed. See below for more details on the subject and speaker, as well as the powerpoint slides and full lecture video. ...