The huge compression of the investment horizon towards an extreme short term bias continues to be a major barrier to real recovery. A methodology to develop a direct capital flow between investors and the real economy is now desperately needed. Reflexivity, or simply put, the fact that markets have de facto no self adjusting mechanisms, should now be a...Read More

The financial crisis and its economic consequences led to re-thinking of many regulatory and economic policies. In some cases, policies emerged “after the fact” to rationalise emergency measures taken to address symptoms of the crisis. This has not always been satisfactory and there have been some unintended consequences. For example, politicians now reconsider their position...Read More

Hannah, Social Europe Journal, March 25, 2011 At the beginning of this series, Thomas Pogge highlighted the close relationship between equality and justice and the connection between these factors and the principles of a democratic society. Within any system, the ability for wealth and power to become concentrated within certain groups has a fundamental impact...Read More

Current mainstream economic thinking says that industrial policy is ineffective, and that market forces should determine the fortunes of companies and industries. In the credit crisis, however, the UK government and most other governments felt compelled to intervene. They established a de facto industrial policy strongly favouring the financial sector, at the expense of the rest of...Read More

Public ignorance of the reality of how the economy actually works is a lamentably common fault these days (I count myself among the guilty), and frequently results in crude, polarising debates that are easily dismissed by decision-makers for their inaccurate insignificance and predilection for ideological posturing. While I do not like it, in fact it...Read More

Chinese people are becoming richer, and the wealth gap in China is, as expected, growing. The just concluded Spring Festival holiday saw consumption reach about 400 billion yuan ($60.69 billion), with many rich Chinese travelling abroad to enjoy their holiday and, with some of them, buying luxury goods. The CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets has even forecast...Read More

Carlo Resta, Roubini Global Economics, February 17, 2011 The assumptions of the efficient market hypothesis and self equilibrium,previously widely acclaimed, led to unsound economic decisions. They created an intellectual complacency that overlooked the risks behind the ongoing structural crisis. New concepts should guide our future analysis and build the foundations of a new economic and financial theory. Most...Read More

In the wake of the recent Irish debt crisis, the UK Coalition government decided not to take part in a new rescue fund for troubled eurozone members, suggested by France and Germany. This decision comes in spite of the UK’s pledge to support the EU-IMF rescue efforts for Ireland through a bilateral loan of more...Read More

More than three years into the most significant structural crisis of modern history, the flaws that caused it are still looming around like the strokes of midnight in a horror movie. A main problem is Moral Hazard. Some banks have reached such a big size that their failure would jeopardise society. Thus, these Banks enjoy an...Read More

Three years into this epochal crisis and still not much light at the end of the tunnel. The “advanced economies” of the Western world have imploded. The celebrated concept that market forces would balance things out, the “efficient markets hypothesis”, is no longer working and proved to be unsound. Same for the other pillar of most...Read More