‘Central banks should admit their mistakes’: an interview with the Bank of England’s Andy Haldane
Andy Haldane, Executive Director of Financial Stability at the Bank of England, has been hailed as a new type of policy expert and intellectual. In this interview, for our Uneconomics series, he sets out his vision for the future of economics and economic policy-making. It is a future where central banks are humble, “listen as often as they speak”, and own up to their mistakes.
August 3, 2012
Uneconomics: a challenge to the power of the economics profession
When economists Lucas Papademos and Mario Monti were parachuted in as Prime Ministers of Greece and Italy respectively in November of last year, this heralded a new era in the power of the economics profession. With questions still being asked about the failings of economics and economists in the build-up to the financial crisis, this technocratic rebuke to democracy was further evidence that this crisis is entrenching existing elite power, rather than weakening it. Not that you would hear any of this being discussed in an economics classroom.
February 9, 2012
The uses and abuses of ‘happiness’
One question that needs to be asked is – do the happiness proponents and their public spokespersons know what they’re doing?
April 25, 2011
Recovery of what? We need a new way of assessing growth
The British economy is officially, technically growing. Growth figures in the region of 0.2% confirm that it is out of recession. But what does this even mean? After months and months, in which funny money was flowing off the printing presses of its central bank and its formerly neo-liberal state came to represent more than 50% of GDP, we can be forgiven for viewing such statistics as a hall of mirrors.
May 28, 2010