Articles
Three steps out of a fix
Rick Rowden offers a trio of measures to overhaul a creaking global financial system Thanks to the historically ambitious scale of their fiscal and monetary policies, most of the rich
Having it all
Could private funding actually benefit nature? Henry Leveson-Gower proposes a cooperative approach. Since the 80s environmental economists have been putting monetary values on nature so they get “counted”. Now they
Is This Financial Capitalism’s Final Assault?
Willy Diddens explains how beauty is in the eye of the investor. On September 14, 2021, the New York Stock Exchange presented a new financial instrument that could lead to
Susan Strange saw the financial crisis coming, Your Majesty
Nat Dyer gives the late Professor Susan Strange credit for having the answers and argues she deserves still more. There is something odd about one of the iconic stories we
Cash crops
Henry Leveson-Gower looks at how local food currencies might bear fruit. Our food system is deeply dysfunctional. Economic forces drive it to deliver unhealthy food, while trashing the environment so
Who will save the world?
Raj Thamotheram is, in theory, betting on pension funds. Covid has transformed global politics and the Omicron variant has caused markets to tumble. Meanwhile COP26 failed to address, adequately, the
Living off a box of chocolates
Private equity in the care sector is thriving on growing demand and dwindling state provision. Vivek Kotecha asks whether its sweet tooth for debt might not bode well for its
A green light
Mark Davis introduces a local investment vehicle that he says could help local communities achieve Net Zero. Two-thirds of UK councils have declared a Climate Emergency. They have set ambitious
Lose change
There’s a digital revolution in money on the way. Barry James reports. A major new disruption to global monetary systems, perhaps the greatest yet, is moving in fast from left
Money for nothing and other Newtonian repercussions
Georgian lessons on the modern economy by Simon Sherratt. In March 1819, William Cobbett – an inveterate critic of the British government – penned a remarkable letter for inclusion in
Deforestation: the route away
Without robust due diligence, financial institutions will continue to fund soy-driven deforestation. By Daniel Jones. Late last year, the UK government announced “world-leading new measures” to protect rainforests. Enshrined in
Covid economics: the European variants
An injection of cash or lockdown and fear? Dirk Ehnts and Michael Paetz look at the options. Last summer, we were mildly optimistic about Europe’s economic response to Covid. It
Bank Job
Five years ago my wife and I were struggling as artist / filmmaker duo, writes Daniel Edelstyn. We felt called to do important work and make a contribution to
Dependency issues
Coming out of the pandemic crisis will be a difficult political and economic balancing act for the Eurozone. And Germany stands to topple, says Dirk Ehnts. The Eurozone is a
Follow the money
Self-styled comedian and economist, Susie Steed, tells how her guided walk around the City turned into a tour of the British Empire. I never set out to run a tour
Pot look
Problems with pensions exhibit the same concerns that drive our inability to tackle the environmental crisis and other great societal issues. We need to recognise uncomfortable truths and meaningfully support
Saint Mark’s square roots
An excerpt from The Venetian Files – a novel by Izaias Almada and Matheus Graselli. September 12-14, 2008: New York City, USA Hank Paulson managed to get Alistair Darling on
Financing a just transition
Nick Robins looks at why investors need to connect climate action with social justice. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), extra investment in clean energy could save the
Home Truths
Government spending that is not investment is like continual partying and drinking. Tanweer Ali tells how austerity was sold as common sense. In the early days of David Cameron’s coalition
You don’t count
Opaque reporting in company accounts is not in the public interest says Richard Murphy. The failings of accounting have been afforded much attention of late. This has been actively appropriate.
Money for nothing and the risks for free
Limited liability is at the nub of it all. Paul Frijters points the finger. Roman men engaged in commerce had a problem: Roman law did not recognise limits to the
The Nobel Bailout
Nat Dyer tells the story of how two Nobel Prize winners almost brought down the world’s financial markets by putting their “rocket science” finance theory into practice. Sounds like a
Fiscal fizz is less sweet
One year on, Ben Reynolds explores the impact of the high-profile “sugar tax”, and where it might go in future. I remember the moment, when two years into running a
Many hands
How can we turn around the world’s financial institutions so that their creation of money serves to construct a new ecological civilisation, rather than destroys our current civilization through the
Greece bears gifts
The European Union has lessons to learn from one of its least adept members writes Alex Tziamalis. While the UK is engulfed by Brexit – a battle for the strategic direction
A sense of insecurity
The growing push for using securitisation markets for development finance is fraught with multiple dangers ahead. Rick Rowden sounds a warning. The international development finance club has been increasingly experimenting with various types
Re-designing money
John Wood suggests that money should be re-designed as local maps of relations, rather than as a universal register of quantities and things. When someone tells you not to re-invent
What economic reform thinking might have looked like if we’d bothered to do it.
Here I am back… in the Treasury like a recurring decimal – but with one great difference. In 1918 most people’s only idea was to get back to pre-1914. No
Victorian Values
Banks are scrabbling to find some trust. Robert Mochrie explains how they might look to the distant past. The nature of banking transactions demonstrates the need for trust between the
What’s the impact of impact investing?
The roles of pay-by-result within public policy Source: Addarii et al., Funding Social Innovation (forthcoming) Filippo Addarii, Alexander Shapiro and Marco Sebastianelli offer a short introduction to the ambition,
Interviews
Bad grammar?
British academic, and ecological economist, based in Vienna, Clive Spash, was one of the few expert voices who openly and scathingly criticised the recent Dasgupta Review. The 600-page review by
A new class act
Douglas Eger is an environmentalist and a serial entrepreneur. He is looking to bring together these two strands of his career in a new venture to create a new asset
The biggest issue
Professor Jane D’Arista’s broad and deep expertise spans monetary policy and regulation. Rick Rowden asked her some large-scale questions about the global economy for The Mint. The Mint: What are your
Theoretically speaking
Randy Wray was one of the finalists for our #NotTheNobel prize in October and is one of the world’s leading advocates of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). It might sound like
Rick Bookstaber Interview: A model agent
Mainstream economics’ failure to predict the 2008 crash undermined the profession’s public credibility. There’s a new game in town that financial risk guru, Rick Bookstaber, has faith in. He shares
Decisions, Decisions
Lamy: the possibilities of digital simulation struck “a visceral chord.” Artificial intelligence could guide decisions from the political to the personal, if people would seize the opportunities on offer. The Mint talks to Dahlia Lamy, who says the
The only way is ethics
Pettifor: “Private authority can’t fully be trusted to uphold contracts.” Trust and compliance with regulation are not familiar virtues in the world of global finance according to Ann Pettifor. She
Three Years and Counting
Bête noir to established economists Steve Keen tells the Mint why Brexit ended a stupid policy but the government line on trade agreements is nonsense and an economic zombie apocalypse
News
Columns
Ground control
Control of land has been a key driver of wealth, power and conflict for most of human history. The industrial revolution changed all that as power shifted from landowners to
What’s love got to do with it?
Broken trust has to be fixed. Frances Coppola explains why there is no substitute. The foundation of human society is trust. Right from the start of their lives, humans trust
Defunding the past
The time has come to pucker up and give Trump a kiss. Our collective sanity is being assailed by an unrelenting locust-swarm media and the groaning end of a socioeconomic
Banking off road
Don’t consult the map while making a handbrake turn. What an unreality of a year so far. Society has done a handbrake turn and we are hurtling in an unmapped
Mutual Understanding
Tony Greenham left the world of thinktanks and discussion on new economics in 2018 to get his hands dirty in doing it for real. He is now leading a project
A rent-seeking bastard speaks
As isolation and social difference goes viral, it’s time to come together. As the state cavalry charges over the hill to save us all from the viral hordes could March
The Teller’s Tale
John Kay in an interview last year for The Mint, singled out Handelsbanken as a ray of hope in the banking world. According to Kay, it “had grown quite rapidly
Credit Where Credit’s Due
Who gets to borrow at a fair rate is a pernicious inequality. It’s funny how, despite overt concerns, affluent people always find ways to keep the poor apart from them:
The children are the future
Babysitting comes with great responsibility. Lehman. I can’t seem to escape the constant harking on the significance of the failure of Lehman. There is even a play about the Lehman
Real Gone Cat
What state are we in? Like the cat in Schrödinger’s famous quantum thought experiment we can’t know whether we are dead or alive as we await the writing of definitive
So what does the failure of Lehmans mean to you?
For me, it marked the end of an exciting and creative period which really started with the Rio Summit in 1992. During this period there was increasing space within the
Whoops apocalypse: analysis or parody? Discuss
Who knew that the flap of a cardboard box full of desk contents could herald a hurricane that would tear through global politics. Frances Coppola follows the money. “Do you
And so… to the cleaners. An invitation to lunch all gets a bit messy.
Last week I had a lunch date. This is not something I get to have much these days. One of my postgraduate students, Crispin McDonal, contacted me through my university.
Books
Financial Inclusion
From the publisher: Should the public play a greater role within the financial system? Decisions about money are a part of our everyday lives. Supporters promote financial inclusion as a
Seeking Virtue in Finance
From the publisher: Since the Global Financial Crisis, a surge of interest in the use of finance as a tool to address social and economic problems suggests the potential for
A cross-field punt
A novelist and a mathematician have combined forces to produce a fictional account of the Lehman Brothers’ crash that injects life into soulless corners of financial teaching reading lists. Review
Sabotage: The Business of Finance
From the Publisher: Financial malpractice, we’re told, is an aberration: the actions of a few bad apples deviating from the norms of a market-governed process and gaming the system. In
A World Without Work
From the Publisher: New technologies have always provoked panic about workers being replaced by machines. In the past, such fears have been misplaced, and many economists maintain that they remain
Mutant Neoliberalism
From the Publisher: Tales of neoliberalism’s death are serially overstated. Following the financial crisis of 2008, neoliberalism was proclaimed a “zombie,” a disgraced ideology that staggered on like an undead
Trading for Good- Christian Felber
Trade is the lifeblood of the global economy, but few would consider it a social good. Instead, our views on trade have polarized between two extremes: ‘free trade’ ideologues who
Why Not Default?: The Political Economy of Sovereign Debt
From Publisher: The European debt crisis has rekindled long-standing debates about the power of finance and the fraught relationship between capitalism and democracy in a globalized world. Why Not Default?
The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay
From Publisher: America’s runaway inequality has an engine: our unjust tax system. Even as they became fabulously wealthy, the ultra-rich have had their taxes collapse to levels last seen in
Taking the Floor: Models, Morals, and Management in a Wall Street Trading Room by Daniel Beunza
From Publisher: Debates about financial reform have led to the recognition that a healthy financial system doesn’t depend solely on how it is structured—organizational culture matters as well. Based on
A Brief History of Doom – Richard Vague
Per the publisher Financial crises happen time and again in post-industrial economies—and they are extraordinarily damaging. Building on insights gleaned from many years of work in the banking industry and
The Case For People’s Quantitative Easing – Frances Coppola
In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, central banks created trillions of dollars of new money, and poured it into financial markets. ‘Quantitative Easing’ (QE) was supposed to prevent
The Lehman Triology – More Brechtian than Brecht
Bertolt Brecht, the marxist dramatist and innovator, believed by moving away from sentimental, emotive theatre, he could allow theatre goers to think. He called this theory of distancing the audience
Short and Sweet
In remarkably few words Nick Silver gets to many points in his biting analysis of the global financial system, Finance, Society and Sustainability. It’s all good – more would be
Event Recordings
Sabotage and Covid-19
Financial malpractice, we’re told, is an aberration: the actions of a few bad apples deviating from the norms of a market-governed process and gaming the system. Anastasia Nesvetailova and Ronen
Holding Corporations to Account: towards an Economic Democracy?
We take it for granted that we get to vote in elections, but that is of course a relatively recent innovation. Universal suffrage only occurred in 1928. However most of
Basic Income and Universal Basic Services: conflicting or complementary?
Two distinct ideas are being promoted to help fix Britain’s broken social security system and badly depleted public services. The first idea – of basic income (BI) – seeks a
Is a Green New Deal the answer?
Since the idea of a Green New Deal was taken up by the newly elected, social media savvy US congress woman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez known as AOC, it has generated a
10 Years after: Testimony from the Crash
The following is based on the actual testimony of real people who were affected by the Crash in different ways. It was performed as an improvised piece by Annee Blott
Applied Pluralism: The Case of Finance
There has been much recent debate also in the UK around the state of the economics profession. Prospect magazine published a piece by Howard Reed proposing that we need to
Are Crypto Currencies and Blockchain the answer or a disaster?
Blockchain has been trumped as an amazing innovation with applications everywhere to deal with the ‘trust issue’. Bitcoins, which use blockchain, have become worth 10’s of thousands of dollars each,