Archive

When the very fabric of society is threatened by prolonged austerity or a financial sector collapse, a deliberate re-structuring of debt may be necessary to restore the hopes of renewed prosperity.

After an era of vigorous expansion a downturn can reveal a large stock of debt relative to the economy’s capacity to service it.

What has been learned now that the Euro zone’s fault lines have been revealed? Where are Europe and the Euro zone today?

Just as the agricultural share of employment has fallen from 40% in the 1920s to less than 2% of the workforce in Europe today, manufacturing’s share of employment will fall to less than 5% of employment.

While yesterday presented a number of frontrunning scientists discussing current economics and state of the economy in general, academic terms, today starts with ECB executive board member Asmussen.

Behind all the technical language and the common theme of bashing bankers, there remains the Great Divide between Germans and the rest.

On my way back home from the Brandenburger Tor, I recalled that I already have been there, it must have been in 1988.

A suprisingly large number of talks refer to the issue of human decision making.

The Institute joined the Centre for International Governance Innovation, and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change in hosting its third-annual plenary conference in Berlin from April 12-15, 2012.

In modern economies, individuals and companies engage in innovative activities, discovering new ways to use existing physical and human capital, and new technologies in which to invest. The institutional and broader social context within which these activities take place also changes in novel ways.

With my remarks today on financial markets and the financial crisis, I do not make any claims to originality. Rather, they are intended as a reminder of certain circumstances that are already familiar to us, in one form or another.

The global economy is in turmoil. Societies are unstable and not anchored by faith in the system or social order.

The economics profession stands on the fragile foundation of presuppositions adopted by professional agreement rather than as a result of empirical observation.