Vollrath, D. (2014) “Does Culture Matter for Economic Growth?“, The Growth Economics Blog, 18 Ιουνίου.   There’s been an increasing number of papers concerned with culture and its relationship to economic growth. I happened to just see this working paper by Di Tella and MacCulloch (2014), but the idea of culture being an important determinant of economic development levels has been hanging out there in the literature for a long time. …Read More

Stiglitz, J. (2014) “Creating an Innovation Society“, Social Europe Journal, 04 Ιουνίου. Citizens in the world’s richest countries have come to think of their economies as being based on innovation. But innovation has been part of the developed world’s economy for more than two centuries. Indeed, for thousands of years, until the Industrial Revolution, incomes stagnated. Then per capita income soared, increasing year after year, interrupted only by the occasional effects of …Read More

Roubini, N. (2014) “The Great Backlash“, Project Syndicate, 31 Μαΐου.   NEW YORK – In the immediate aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, policymakers’ success in preventing the Great Recession from turning into Great Depression II held in check demands for protectionist and inward-looking measures. But now the backlash against globalization – and the freer movement of goods, services, capital, labor, and technology that came with it – has …Read More

Hoffer, F. (2014) “Inequality And Post-neoliberal Globalisation“, Social Europe Journal, 29 Μαΐου.   Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable. These are …Read More

Kantor, M. (2014) “Europe in Revolt“, Project Syndicate, 29 Μαΐου.   BRUSSELS – This Monday, European citizens awoke to a new reality. Across Europe, parties opposed to the European Union, mostly on the far right, were swept into the European Parliament by a wave of voter discontent. In some EU member states, including key countries like the United Kingdom and France, such parties will control the largest blocs of MEPs. …Read More