Blog
2013
The politics of employment and the limits of the recovery
Jeremy Green - 23 December 2013Despite claims of recovery we are still mired in an employment crisis.
‘Civic Capitalism’: regulation as the only antidote to unstable growth
Tony Payne & Colin Hay - 19 December 2013We set out five principles on which to base sound economic governance and add a more practical rule of thumb
Hungry for change: food insecurity in the wake of the crisis
Sébastien Rioux - 16 December 2013The politics of the financial crisis have generated rising and unacceptable levels of hunger in advanced societies
Wildlife black markets and the political economy of illegal trade
Lorraine Elliott - 03 December 2013Combatting illegal wildlife trade requires coordinated transnational action
Welcome to the pseudo-recovery
Craig Berry - 29 November 2013UK investment and consumption performance demonstrates the frailty of the economic recovery
Social security in the cross-hairs
David Coates - 27 November 2013The last remaining pillar of the New Deal era is increasingly endangered
Interrogating the ‘good news’ on employment
Craig Berry - 25 November 2013Why the coalition government is wrong to consider the relatively high employment rate one of its main successes
‘Civic Capitalism’: restoring democratic economic governance
Colin Hay & Tony Payne - 22 November 2013We need to move on from the ideology that led us astray to a more consciously held, open-ended and dynamic ideology that asks not what we can do for the market but what the market can do for us
The ghost of Smoot-Hawley and the global trading system
Gabriel Siles-Brügge - 21 November 2013Memories of the Great Depression haunt current debates about the role of trade in a post-crisis world
Export-led growth and the failure of economic rebalancing
Craig Berry - 19 November 2013The trade deficit is growing – and the Transatlantic trade deal is unlikely to rectify this
Are we there yet?
Craig Berry - 14 November 2013The recent good news about renewed growth in the British economy badly needs to be scrutinised and put in context
The dirty little secret of the euro zone crisis: the German banks
Helen Thompson - 11 November 2013Germany’s response to the crisis reflects its commitment to protect its own banks
‘Civic Capitalism’: introducing a new model of capitalism
Colin Hay & Tony Payne - 08 November 2013We must start thinking about how to construct something better out of the widely analysed failings of Anglo-liberal capitalism
Can pensions break the British investment strike?
Craig Berry - 07 November 2013The government has a covert strategy to use pensions saving to improve Britain’s economic performance, but it may jeopardise the long-term interests of members
The restructuring ‘revolution’: sovereign debt deals are no longer such a familiar game
Giselle Datz - 04 November 2013Harnessing financial market innovation may help smooth the politics of sovereign debt
Global Races
Tony Payne - 01 November 2013It’s right to focus attention on Britain’s position in the global political economy, but we need a more sophisticated way of thinking about this issue than the notion of a race
The Nobel Prize and the reproduction of economics orthodoxy
Matthew Watson - 30 October 2013This year’s economics laureates reflect the narrow purview of the prize and the entrenchment of familiar but limited ways of thinking about economic life
The Caribbean's silent debt crisis
Gail Hurley - 28 October 2013New policies are needed to break the cycle of debt dependency
Placing bets on the climate
Jo Bates - 24 October 2013Developments in ‘big data’ science and the weather risk industry are transforming the political economy of climate change
US standoff was fallout from the financial crisis – and it’s not over
Stephanie Mudge - 22 October 2013Deepening political divisions are threatening the health of Western democracies
Precarious employment & the ‘recovery through regressive redistribution’
Scott Lavery - 17 October 2013Proliferation of zero hours contracts is further entrenching Britain’s dysfunctional economic model
Too important to leave to the economists: putting the ‘political’ back in political economy
Colin Hay - 10 October 2013The crisis has shown us that we can’t let mainstream economists continue setting the policy agenda
Bad economics
Andrew Gamble - 08 October 2013The dominance of the prevailing economic orthodoxy makes it hard for even modest reforms to gain traction
The new contractual state in Britain
Mick Moran - 03 October 2013Britain’s contractual state has been marked by systemic abuses, incompetence and a lack of transparency
Everyday life in crisis Spain: are we all Roma now?
Owen Parker - 01 October 2013As the hardships of life touch more and more sectors of Spanish society, so new forms of resistance are spreading too
The American student debt crisis: the next financial time bomb?
David Coates - 26 September 2013Staggering levels of student debt are strangling the US economic recovery
The politics of quantitative easing: ‘recovery’ through regressive redistribution
Jeremy Green - 24 September 2013Neoliberal crisis responses in the Anglo-American economies have deepened inequality and divided society
Of ‘jobless recoveries’ and anti-social science
Stephanie Mudge - 19 September 2013We need to build upon, not bury, our historical knowledge of the social world if we want to understand the politics of the recovery
Mass Flourishing, or nostalgic nonsense?
Fred Block - 17 September 2013Edmund Phelps’s new book ignores the key role that states play in making innovation happen
Does Britain need to be pursuing a development strategy?
Tony Payne - 12 September 2013Very few academics, journalists and politicians ever treat Britain’s economic problems as matters of failed or flawed development. Perhaps they should?
Stuck in dirty development
Hayley Stevenson - 10 September 2013The G20 is stalling its commitment to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, despite the need for immediate action
A centrist political economy for Britain: Part 1
Matt Bishop - 03 September 2013The fabled ‘centre ground’ of British politics is more malleable than people realise, which means that a radical agenda for the country’s political economy does not involve left-of-centre politicians vacating it
On Superheroes, Men and The Politics of Money
Adrienne Roberts - 14 August 2013Gendered narratives around Mark Carney’s appointment obstruct much needed debate about the Bank’s role
Mark Carney’s ‘forward guidance’: from rebalancing to fingers crossed
Craig Berry - 08 August 2013Pension funds will find little comfort in forward guidance
Whatever happened to progressive taxation?
Matt Bishop - 07 August 2013The social contract between different groups of citizens could completely unravel if we don’t see a return to progressive taxation
Solving malnutrition through business and science?
Graham Harrison - 01 August 2013We need to broaden our understanding of hunger and challenge the prevailing market-centred approach
Swopping conservatives
David Coates - 29 July 2013American conservatism has shifted so far to the right we almost need a new term to describe it
The power of banks
Cornelia Woll - 25 July 2013Government dependency upon the banks gives them huge political leverage
Brazil’s mounting challenges: ‘The Giant has Awakened’
Giselle Datz - 23 July 2013The approach of next year’s soccer World Cup is putting the spotlight on Brazil at a crucial moment in its development
The Great Uncertainty: Thinking through questions of time
Colin Hay & Tony Payne - 18 July 2013The global financial crisis, the shift in the global balance of economic power and the environmental threat have unfolded over very different time horizons, but they still come to a head at the same moment
New YouGov survey reports on the state of opinion in Britain
Will Jennings & Gerry Stoker - 16 July 2013Austerity leaves citizens raging against the short-sighted, self-serving leadership provided by politicians
The Great Uncertainty: thinking through environmental threat
Colin Hay & Tony Payne - 11 July 2013That we find ourselves in the environmental ‘red zone’ has profound implications for how we think about growth
What India does matters in intellectual property
Valbona Muzaka - 04 July 2013Court decisions in India are setting important precedents for the future of intellectual property
New institutions but old ideas: the story of the UK’s new regulatory regime for financial services
Richard Woodward - 02 July 2013Perpetuation of a failed regulatory philosophy means more City crises and scandals
Why entrepreneurs will not save the world
Owen Parker - 30 May 2013Governments have championed ‘entrepreneurs’ as figures capable of reviving stagnant economies and alleviating social problems. But who are they, and are they worth celebrating?
‘Third World problems’?
Matt Bishop - 28 May 2013We may all be developing countries now, facing similar broad challenges, but our capacity to respond to the rapidly transforming developmental context is highly unequal
Is there a political economy of football?
Wyn Grant - 23 May 2013Football often likes to see itself as a world apart from society and politics, but it is susceptible to political economy analysis
Opening up public data
Jo Bates - 21 May 2013The growing debate over opening up public data raises serious political and economic questions about who gains and who loses from such a process
Unpacking the 2013 Human Development Index
Tony Payne - 16 May 2013The UNDP claims ‘the Rise of the South’ is having a significant impact on economic growth and societal change
The global land grab
Ben Richardson - 14 May 2013Going back to the intellectual roots of IPE is instructive for understanding today’s global land politics
The failures of supply-side innovation policy
Richard Jones - 10 May 2013Longstanding deficiencies in Britain’s innovation policy are hampering our efforts to return to growth
The UK’s very dangerous banks
Helen Thompson - 07 May 2013Banks are being asked to lead the recovery despite the fact that they continue to pose the biggest single threat to the British economy
What’s at stake in the hunt for a new political economy?
Stephanie Mudge - 03 May 2013The links between knowledge, institutions and policy outcomes are the keys to building democratic approaches to political economy
Gridlock in Washington: conservative heaven!
David Coates - 02 May 2013Conservative populism is flourishing in America as rapid change and media hysteria cultivate the politics of fear