SIMON WREN-LEWIS is Professor of Economics, Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University. He began his career at H.M.Treasury, followed by becoming head of macroeconomic research at NIESR, and then as a professor in the economics departments of Strathclyde, Exeter and finally Oxford University (and fellow at Merton College). His work has often had a strong policy focus. In 1989 he published, with colleagues at the NIESR, a study suggesting that an entry rate of 1.95 DEM/GBP into the ERM was too high, which at the time was a minority view. In 2002 he wrote one of the background papers for the Treasury's 2003 assessment of its five economic tests for joining EMU. He was also the principal external advisor to the Bank of England on the development of two of its core macroeconomic models. A long time advocate of Fiscal Councils, his 2007 proposal was influential in the formation of the UK's Office of Budget Responsibility. Since 2012 he has written a blog which is widely read among policymakers.
CONTENT: In this seminar, Professor Wren-Lewis will discuss the principles behind the design of fiscal rules, and how these might be applied in the current UK and Eurozone contexts. The role of fiscal councils, and the particular problems associated with a liquidity trap, will be emphasised.
30 October: Andy Ross: Prudent Fiscal Consolidation Versus Reckless Austerity and the Limits of Capitalism
13 November: Stephany Griffith-Jones: Promoting Investment and Growth in Europe
27 November: Ozlem Onaran: What Happens to Growth when there is a Global Race to the Bottom in the Share of Labour?
12 February: Vicky Pryce: The Turmoil in the Eurozone: How Might the Fiscal and Debt Impasse be Resolved and what would the Effect be on the UK?
05 March: Charles Goodhart: Bail-out or Bail-In?
19 March: Steve Fazzari: Inequality, the Great Recession, and Slow Recovery
30 April: Robert Chote: The Crisis, the Consolidation and Britain's Public Finances
7 May: William Brown: The Use of Supply Chain Disruption to Fight for Workers' Rights
14 November: Gary Dymski: The Logic and Impossibility of Austerity as a Macroeconomic Policy Prescription
05 December: Ben Gardiner, Ron Martin and Peter Tyler: Spatially Unbalanced Growth in the British Economy
06 February: Terry Barker: The Financial Crisis and the World Economy: When Can we Expect a Return to Normal?
13 February: Stephanie Sequino: Stratification and the Hidden Costs of Austerity
27 February: Michelle Baddeley: Animal Spirits Under Austerity
13 March: Meghnad Desai: What Kind of Economics for Austerity?
30 November: Andrew Gamble: Debts and Deficits: the Political Debate in the UK
01 February: Andre Moreira Cunha: China's Response to the Great Recession and its Impact on Latin America
08 February: Fernando Ferrari-Filho : Brazil's Response to the 'Great Recession'
22 February: Valpy Fitzgerald : Taxation, Debt and the Economics of Austerity
02 May: Paul Mason: Why It's Kicking off Everywhere?
03 November: Simon Mohun: Title: A Historical Perspective on the Recent Crisis - What Sort of Recovery Can we Expect?
10 November: Roy Rotheim: New Keynesian Effective Supply Failures: a Post Keynesian View
17 November: Paul Ormerod: Recessions as Cascades on Networks
02 February: Andrew Sentence: Monetary Policy in Turbulent Times
09 February: Karim Abadir: Is the Economic Crisis Over (and Out)?
02 March: Sheila Dow: Animal Spirits in Times of Austerity
25 May: David Miles: Monetary Policy and Financial Stability
10 November: Malcolm Sawyer: Restructuring the Financial Sector in View of the Current Crisis
17 November: Timothy Congdon: The Triumph of Quantitative Easing
01 December: Philip Augar: Chasing Alpha: How Reckless Growth and Unchecked Ambition Ruined the City's Golden Decade
20 January: Geoff Harcourt: Post Keynesian Economic Policies for Modern Capitalism
17 February: Stephanie Blankenburg: The Global Financial Crisis and its Aftermath: Debates on Public Debt
24 February: Howard Stein: The Economic Crisis, G20 and the Re-Empowerment of the IMF and the World Bank
10 March: Costas Lapavitsas: After the Crisis: To Regulate Institutions or Systems?
05 May: Giuseppe Fontana: Monetary Policy Under the Current Crisis
25 May: Gillian Tett: Back to the Future? The Outlook for Finance
12 February: William Keegan (Observer): Fifty Years of Boom and Bust from Macmillan to the Credit Crunch
26 February: Terry Barker (University of Cambridge): Predictions of 'Return to Normal' in the Global Economy
12 March: Malcolm Sawyer (University of Leeds): Economic Policy After the Financial Crisis
20 April: Robert Wade (LSE): The crisis as an opportunity to reorganize capitalism
19 May: Larry Elliott (Guardian): Capitalism in Crisis: the Crash of 2009