James K. Galbraith holds the Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and a professorship in Government at The University of Texas at Austin.

Galbraith holds degrees from Harvard University (BA) and in economics from Yale University (MA, M.Phil, PhD). He was Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress in the early 1980s. He chaired the board of Economists for Peace and Security from 1996 to 2016 (www.epsusa.org) and directs the University of Texas Inequality Project (http://utip.lbj.utexas.edu). He is a managing editor of Structural Change and Economic Dynamics.

In 2010, he was elected to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. In 2014 he was co-winner with Angus Deaton of the Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economics. In 2020 he received the Veblen-Commons Award of the Association for Evolutionary Economics.

By this expert

The Effect of Sanctions on Russia: A Skeptical View

Article | Apr 11, 2023

Sanctions on Russia are isomorphic to a strict policy of trade protection, industrial policy, and capital controls.

The Gift of Sanctions: An Analysis of Assessments of the Russian Economy, 2022 – 2023

Paper Working Paper | | Apr 2023

Despite the shock and the costs, the sanctions imposed on the Russian economy were in the nature of a gift.

The Quasi-Inflation of 2021-2022: A Case of Bad Analysis and Worse Response

Article | Feb 2, 2023

Why the conventional tools of the Phillips Curve, NAIRU, potential output, and money-supply growth are useless

A Comment on Lysandrou and Nesvetailova

Article | Jun 24, 2022

James K. Galbraith responds on the U.S. dollar system

Featuring this expert

Sanctions: To Russia with Love

Video | Feb 28, 2024

James Galbraith flips the script on sanctions. How has Russia adapted?

5th Annual UNCTAD-YSI Summer School

Challenges and Opportunities of a New International Economic Order

YSI Event Workshop YSI | Aug 1–6, 2022

The 5th UNCTAD YSI Summer School provides an opportunity to explore the Challenges and Opportunities of a New International Economic Order. The school will bring together UNCTAD experts, academics, diplomats, and young scholars from across the globe for lively and stimulating intellectual debates.

Still Swimming Against the Tide?

40 Years of Thinking on Trade and Development

YSI Event Workshop YSI | Aug 1–7, 2021

The 4th UNCTAD YSI Summer School celebrates the approach and legacy of UNCTAD’s annual Trade and Development Report (TDR). The school will bring together UNCTAD experts, academics, diplomats, and young scholars from across the globe for lively and stimulating intellectual debates.

Counterpunch cites James Galbraith’s INET article on the Texas Freeze

News Feb 23, 2021

“Texas’ leaders knew as of 2011 … when the state went through a short severe freeze, that the system was radically unstable in extreme weather,” wrote James K. Galbraith, of the University of Texas at Austin, in the Institute for New Economic Thinking. “But they did nothing,” he wrote. “To do something, they would have had to regulate the system. And they didn’t want to regulate the system, because the providers, a rich source of campaign funding, didn’t want to be regulated and to have to spend on weatherization that was not needed – most of the time.” That’s what happens when the private sector calls the shots. Money first.” — Richard Gross, Counterpunch