St Catharine’s Political Economy Seminar – ‘Scientific Macroeconomics and the Quantity Theory of Credit’ by Richard Werner
2018-10-17 18:00 - 19:30 UTC | Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College, St Catharine's College, Cambridge, cb21rl, United Kingdom
Date: Wednesday 17 October 2018
Time: 18:00 -19:30
Speaker: Richard Werner
Talk Title: ‘Scientific Macroeconomics and the Quantity Theory of Credit’
Location: Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College
All are welcome. The seminar series is supported by the Cambridge Journal of Economics and the Economics and Policy Group at the Judge Business School.
Speaker:
Richard Werner is Professor and Chair in International Banking at the University of Southampton (since 2005), and is founding director of the Centre for Banking, Finance and Sustainable Development. He is a Member of Linacre College, Oxford, Convenor of the Association for Research on Banking and the Economy (ARBE), and member of the ECB Shadow Council. He is also the founding chair of Local First, a community interest company establishing not-for-profit community banks in the UK, starting with the Hampshire Community Bank. Richard previously was a Professor of monetary, macro and development economics at Goethe-University Frankfurt and assistant professor at Sophia University, Tokyo. In 1992, as European Commission Fellow at Oxford, Richard integrated the banking system in a macroeconomic model able to distinguish between the impact of bank credit on asset markets and economic growth (the ‘Quantity Theory of Disaggregated Credit’), and warned of the coming banking crisis and deep recession in Japan. In 1995 he advanced a post-banking crisis monetary policy to stimulate the economy, which he called ‘Quantitative Easing’ (followed in 1998 by ‘Enhanced Debt Management’). In 2003 he warned of the credit-driven asset bubbles and crises in the eurozone. Richard has published in journals and in books.
Talk Overview:
Alison in Wonderland was not an equilibrium economist: she only believed six impossible things before breakfast (equilibrium economists need to believe at least eight impossible things). Scientific research methodology is reviewed and it is proposed to also deploy it in economics. Doing this, key features of how actual economies work can be established. It is seen that all markets must be expected to be rationed (i.e. in disequilibrium). Scientific methodology also helps in identifying the link between the financial system and the real economy, including sustainable development, the role of interest rates, money and the existence and functioning of banks. It is seen how to predict and prevent boom-bust cycles, banking crises and subsequent recessions, as well as how to react appropriately once they happen, without burdening the tax payer. The role of central banks is also discussed, as well as their reaction to the empirical refutation of their longstanding preferred narrative.
Please contact the seminar organisers
Philip Arestis (pa267@cam.ac.uk) and Michael Kitson (mk24@cam.ac.uk) in the event of a query

Cambridge Realist Workshop – Eckhard Rosenbaum - Institutions and mental models – Some reflections on the interplay of social reality and its representation
2018-10-29 19:30 - 21:00 | Newnham College, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Speaker: Eckhard Rosenbaum
Talk Title: ‘Institutions and mental models – Some reflections on the interplay of social reality and its representation?’
Drinks available from 7:30 pm, talk starts at 8pm.

'Growth and Crisis under Finance-dominated Capitalism: A Stock-flow consistent approach' - Professor Amit Bhaduri
2018-10-31 17:00 - 19:00
Professor Amit Bhaduri (Delhi) on Wednesday 31 October at 17.00
‘Growth and Crisis under Finance-dominated Capitalism: A Stock-flow consistent approach’
Discussant: Professor Jerzy Osiatynski (Polish Monetary Policy Committee)
Alumni Lecture Theatre (Paul Webley Wing, Senate House North Block)
SOAS, University of London
Thornhaugh Street
London WC1H 0XG
nearest underground station: Russell Square.
Research on Money and Finance – RMF
www.researchonmoneyandfinance.org
To post to this group, send email to repemf@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/repemf?hl=en

St Catharine’s Political Economy Seminar – ‘De-unionization and the growing Inequality’ by Ahmad Seyf
2018-11-07 18:00 - 19:30 | Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College, St Catharine's College, Cambridge, cb21rl, United Kingdom
Date: Wednesday 7 November 2018
Time: 18:00 -19:30
Speaker: Ahmad Seyf
Talk Title: ‘De-unionization and the growing Inequality’
Location: Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College
All are welcome. The seminar series is supported by the Cambridge Journal of Economics and the Economics and Policy Group at the Judge Business School.
Speaker:
Ahmad Seyf is currently a member of the Cambridge Centre of Economic and Public Policy (CCEPP), and has retired from the Department of Management and Human Resources at Regent’s University. Prior to Regent’s University, he taught at the Department of Economics at the University of Staffordshire. His main research interests are international business economics, globalisation and the economic and social history of the Middle East. Recent publications include, ‘Population and Agricultural Development in Iran, 1800-1906’ in Middle Eastern Studies, 2009, and ‘Iran and the Great Famine, 1870-1872’ in Middle Eastern Studies, 2010.
His books include Iran’s Contemporary Political Economy (2012), the Economy of Iran under Ahmadinejad (2012), Crisis in Despotism in Iran (2014), Capitalism and Democracy (2016) and The Great Recession, Iranian view ((2017, Anti-Neoliberalism (2018). His recent publications in English are, The Emerging Economies and the Great Recession (2016), and The Need for Relevant Policies to Tackle Inequality (2017).
Talk Overview:
This contribution examines the growing inequality and offers a brief historical examination as to its roots in the last four decades.
An important point to make is that this growing divide is not ‘an act of God or nature’ but has been initiated by policy decisions and laws made in the last four decades, e.g. reducing the power and influence of trade unions, enhancing the impact of the banks, keeping wages down, insisting on a rich-man-friendly tax reforms, which, in turn, were passed by legislators who were elected. It follows that if there is sufficient political will, things can change again through government or legislative action by those we care to elect to form the government.
Reversing some of the decisions on taxes and making them more progressive could help, but more fundamental reforms; especially on labour market institutions are needed. We need to tackle rising inequality in market income by strengthening trade unions which is of paramount importance as the recent history of inequality reveals. To enhance the impact, this measure must be supplemented by relevant fiscal policies to make our taxes more progressive and our social expenditures better targeted. This will be the focus of this contribution.

Please contact the seminar organisers Philip Arestis (pa267@cam.ac.uk) and Michael Kitson (m.kitson@jbs.cam.ac.uk) in the event of a query.

The Insecurity Cycle Workshop
2018-11-08 13:00 - 17:00 | Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College, St Catharine's College, Cambridge, cb21rl, United Kingdom
CBR/PPSRI Workshop: The Insecurity Cycle
How far can ‘free’ markets serve the interests of society? Can labour and financial markets be brought into balance with each other? What drives the conventional wisdom that appears to set the parameters to public policy, and which might help to explain why it has been so difficult to bring about lasting institutional change following the global financial crisis? These are among the issues addressed by Sue Konzelmann, Simon Deakin, Marc Fovargue-Davies and Frank Wilkinson in their book, Labour, Finance and Inequality: The Insecurity Cycle in British Public Policy, published in April 2018. The Centre for Business Research (‘CBR’) and the Public Policy Strategic Research Initiative (PPSRI) will be holding a workshop on 8 November to discuss themes emerging from the book.
Date
Thursday 8 November 2018
Location
The Ramsden Room, St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge
https://www.caths.cam.ac.uk/about-us/visiting-college/maps
Schedule
Lunch will be served from 1:00 p.m. The Workshop will begin at 2:00 p.m. and conclude no later than 5:00 p.m.
Speakers
Simon Deakin, CBR, University of Cambridge
Ruth Dukes, University of Glasgow
Marc Fovargue-Davies, CBR, University of Cambridge
John Kelly, Birkbeck, University of London
Sue Konzelmann, Birkbeck, University of London, and the Progressive Economic Forum
Vicky Pryce, Centre for Economics and Business Research, London
Colin Talbot, CBR, University of Cambridge
John Weeks, SOAS, University of London, and the Progressive Economic Forum
Registration
If you wish to attend please send an email to Rachel Wagstaff (r.wagstaff@cbr.cam.ac.uk)
Publication details
https://www.routledge.com/Labour-Finance-and-Inequality-The-Insecurity-Cycle-in-British-Public/Konzelmann-Deakin-Fovargue-Davies-Wilkinson/p/book/9781138919723

Economics for Campaigners - Who earns and owns how much? Income, wealth, gender and race inequality
2018-11-08 19:00 - 21:00 | University of Greenwich, Park Row, London, SE10 9LS, United Kingdom
Who earns and owns how much? Income, wealth, gender and race inequality
8 November 2018, 19:00
Rafael Wildauer, Lecturer in Economics, UoG and Prof Sian Moore, UoG
“Economics for Campaigners”
Free public events
Organized by Greenwich Political Economy Research Group / Institute of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability (GPERC/PEGFA)
University of Greenwich (UoG)
“Economics for Campaigners” is a series of free public events for citizens and campaigners, who want to understand economics to make an impact on economic policies and contribute to policy debates in their organizations and communities at the local, national or international level.
We will have an interactive discussion exploring difficult questions; we will debunk myths, challenge common misconceptions, and discuss alternatives to mainstream policies. The aim is to support citizens and campaigners to become confident in contributing to policy debates in their communities and organisations about the most urgent social and economic questions of our time. We assume no prior background knowledge and aim to introduce key concepts building on your experience as citizens or campaigners.
All events are scheduled for 19:00-21:00 to make it feasible to attend after work. Events last for two hours per seminar including an introduction and lots of time for debate in a participatory format including group discussions and/or questions and answers.
While the events are free, please register here for both events. All events are at the University of Greenwich, Park Row, SE109LS, Greenwich, London. The details of the programme and location are here.
Detailed information on getting to University of Greenwich.
Please visit our website for the Greenwich Papers in Political Economy, GPERC Policy Briefs, other publications, and forthcoming events.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Cambridge Realist Workshop – Geoffrey Hodgson - Why rumours of the death of Max U are exaggerated
2018-11-12 19:30 - 21:00 | Newnham College, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Speaker: Geoffrey Hodgson
Talk Title: ‘Why rumours of the death of Max U are exaggerated’
Drinks available from 7:30 pm, talk starts at 8pm.

Economics for Campaigners: Feminist economics: Gender equality and a caring economy
2018-11-15 19:00 - 21:00 | University of Greenwich, Park Row, London, SE10 9LS, United Kingdom
Feminist economics: Gender equality and a caring economy
15 November 2018, 19:00
Sue Himmelweit, Emeritus Professor, Open University
“Economics for Campaigners”
Free public events
Organized by Greenwich Political Economy Research Group / Institute of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability (GPERC/PEGFA)
University of Greenwich (UoG)
“Economics for Campaigners” is a series of free public events for citizens and campaigners, who want to understand economics to make an impact on economic policies and contribute to policy debates in their organizations and communities at the local, national or international level.
We will have an interactive discussion exploring difficult questions; we will debunk myths, challenge common misconceptions, and discuss alternatives to mainstream policies. The aim is to support citizens and campaigners to become confident in contributing to policy debates in their communities and organisations about the most urgent social and economic questions of our time. We assume no prior background knowledge and aim to introduce key concepts building on your experience as citizens or campaigners.
All events are scheduled for 19:00-21:00 to make it feasible to attend after work. Events last for two hours per seminar including an introduction and lots of time for debate in a participatory format including group discussions and/or questions and answers.
While the events are free, please register here for both events. All events are at the University of Greenwich, Park Row, SE109LS, Greenwich, London. The details of the programme and location are here.
Detailed information on getting to University of Greenwich.
Please visit our website for the Greenwich Papers in Political Economy, GPERC Policy Briefs, other publications, and forthcoming events.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Post-Brexit Options for the UK: New Legal Analysis
2018-11-16 09:30 - 17:00
The UK is experiencing a crisis on many levels – economic, political and constitutional – as it faces up to the implications of Brexit. Since June 2016 there has been much speculation on the likely effects of Brexit, but a failure to focus on the institutional detail of different scenarios. In this conference we will bring to bear the latest legal research on the implications of Brexit for trade, competition and regulation; the UK’s devolution settlement; and its constitution. There will also be a discussion of options around a second Brexit referendum.
Peterhouse, Cambridge, 16 November 2018, 9:30-17:00
Provisional Schedule:
Public Opinion and a Second Referendum
Charlene Rohr, RAND Europe
David Howarth, University of Cambridge
Trade, Competition and Regulation:
Albertina Albors-Llorens, University of Cambridge
Simon Deakin, University of Cambridge
Michael Waibel, University of Cambridge
Devolution
Elisabeth Jones, National Assembly for Wales
James Wolffe QC, Lord Advocate for Scotland
Julian Ghosh QC, University of Cambridge
Constitution
Catherine Barnard, University of Cambridge
Martin Steinfeld, University of Cambridge
Alison Young, University of Cambridge
Location:
The Theatre, Peterhouse, Cambridge CB2 1RD
http://www.pet.cam.ac.uk
Registration
To reserve a place please email Carolyn Twigg (cmt28@cam.ac.uk) asap, no later than Thursday 8 November 2018.

St Catharine’s Political Economy Seminar – ‘Time for Growth' by Lars Boerner
2018-11-21 18:00 - 19:30 | Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College, St Catharine's College, Cambridge, cb21rl, United Kingdom
Date: Wednesday, 21 November 2018
Time: 18:00 -19:30
Speaker: Lars Boerner
Talk Title: ‘Time for Growth’
Location: Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College
All are welcome. The seminar series is supported by the Cambridge Journal of Economics and the Economics and Policy Group at the Judge Business School.
Speaker:
Lars Boerner is Senior Lecturer in Economics at King’s Business School, King’s College London. He is an economist and economic historian who investigates the evolution and development of economies in the long run. He works in particular on the evolution of market and other allocation and clearing mechanisms, the effect of general purpose technologies for long run growth, and alternative ways to measure social and economic interactions in societies, i.e. comparing trade patterns and the spread of diseases. He has published, among others, in the Journal of Political Economy, Explorations in Economic History, and The Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics. He has earned his PhD in Economics at the Humboldt Universität Berlin and has been affiliated with the Department of Economics of the Freie Universität Berlin, Stanford University, the European University Institute, and the Department of Economic History of the London School of Economics and Political Sciences.
Talk Overview:
Lars Boerner will present on the impact of the early adoption of one of the most important high-technology machines in history, the public mechanical clock, on long-run growth in Europe. Qualitative research as shown in terms of the introduction of clocks had an impact on coordination, productivity, and discipline and order in societies.
However, these insights have not yet been linked to any research agenda in economic growth and development. Based on a quantitative analysis, Lars Boerner shows that the early adoption and diffusion of the new technology had an impact on economic growth in adopting cities and countries with high diffusion rates. Lars Boerner finds significant growth rates between 1500 and 1700 in the range of 30 percentage points in early adopter cities and areas. In the econometric analysis Lars Boerner avoids endogeneity by considering the relationship between the adoption of clocks with two sets of instruments: distance from the first adopters and the appearance of repeated solar eclipses. The latter instrument is motivated by the predecessor technologies of mechanical clocks, astronomic instruments that measured the course of heavenly bodies.
Please contact the seminar organisers Philip Arestis (pa267@cam.ac.uk) and Michael Kitson (m.kitson@jbs.cam.ac.uk) in the event of a query.

Cambridge Realist Workshop – Lynne Chester - Title tbc
2018-11-26 08:00 - 17:00 | Newnham College, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Speaker: Lynne Chester
Talk Title: TBC
Drinks available from 7:30 pm, talk starts at 8pm.

St Catharine’s Political Economy Seminar - ‘Fiscal Consequences of Unconventional Monetary and Credit Policies’ by Yaprak Tavman
2019-01-16 18:00 - 19:30 | Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College, St Catharine's College, Cambridge, cb21rl, United Kingdom
Date: Wednesday, 16 January 2019
Time: 18:00 -19:30
Speaker: Yaprak Tavman
Talk Title: ‘Fiscal Consequences of Unconventional Monetary and Credit Policies’
Location: Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College
All are welcome. The seminar series is supported by the Cambridge Journal of Economics and the Economics and Policy Group at the Judge Business School.
Speaker:
Yaprak Tavman is a Lecturer in Economics at the New College of the Humanities (NCH) London. Before joining NCH, Yaprak Tavman worked as a Lecturer in Economics at Newcastle University for 2 years. She has obtained her PhD in Economics from the University of York, where she has also worked as a Teaching Fellow. She has completed her MSc in Economics and Finance with distinction at the University of York and was a Jean Monnet Scholar during her postgraduate studies. Prior to her teaching career, Yaprak Tavrman had worked as a specialist at HSBC Bank plc, and following her graduation from Middle East Technical University, Turkey.
Her main area of research is macroeconomics, with specialisations in financial markets and the macroeconomy, macroprudential regulation and financial stability, central bank policies, and political economy of finance. She has recently published her article titled ”A Comparative Analysis of Macroprudential Policies” in Oxford Economic Papers.
Talk Overview:
The severity of the 2008-09 global financial crisis forced policy-makers, particularly in advanced economies, to adopt a range of unconventional monetary and credit policies. Although the effectiveness of such policies in stabilizing the economy has been extensively studied, there is as yet no systematic analysis of the real costs of enacting unconventional measures. In this paper, utilizing a New Keynesian general equilibrium model with financial frictions and distortionary taxation, we provide a comparative cost-benefit analysis of two such policies; credit easing and bank capital injections. We note that the use of bank capital injections has a greater stabilizing effect on the economy, at the expense of higher costs. We also show that evaluation of unconventional policy based on lump-sum taxes overstates the benefits of policy interventions. However, our results reveal that both credit policies are welfare improving even with distortionary taxes. Bank capital injections generate higher welfare gains, under both lump-sum and variable tax rates.
Please contact the seminar organisers Philip Arestis (pa267@cam.ac.uk) and Michael Kitson (m.kitson@jbs.cam.ac.uk) in the event of a query.

Cambridge Realist Workshop - Clive Lawson - Technology and a Speeding up of the Social
2019-01-28 19:30 - 21:30 | Newnham College, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Speaker: Clive Lawson
Talk Title: ‘Technology and a Speeding up of the Social’
Drinks available from 7:30 pm, talk starts at 8pm.

Cambridge Realist Workshop - Heikki Patomäki - Reflexivity of Anticipations in Economics and Political Economy
2019-02-11 19:30 - 21:00 | Newnham College, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Speaker: Heikki Patomäki
Talk Title: ‘ Reflexivity of Anticipations in Economics and Political Economy’
Drinks available from 7:30 pm, talk starts at 8pm.

St Catharine’s Political Economy Seminar - 'The Changing State and the 2019 Spending Review' by Paul Johnson
2019-02-13 18:00 - 19:30 | Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College, St Catharine's College, Cambridge, cb21rl, United Kingdom
Date: Wednesday, 13 February 2019
Time: 18:00 -19:30
Speaker: Thomas Pope
Talk Title: ‘’The Changing State and the 2019 Spending Review’’
Location: Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College
The next St Catharine’s Political Economy Seminar in the series on the Economics of Austerity, will be held on 13 February 2019. Thomas Pope will give a talk on “The Changing State and the 2019 Spending Review”. The seminar will be held in the Ramsden Room at St Catharine’s College from 6.00-7.30 pm. All are welcome. The seminar series is supported by the Cambridge Journal of Economics and the Economics and Policy Group at the Cambridge Judge Business School.
Speaker:
Thomas Pope is a Research Economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Thomas works in the tax sector. His main areas of interest include firm investment and the effects of the tax system on large and small businesses. He also works on the public finances
Talkover:
Later this year we should hear the outcome of the spending review – arguably the most important non-Brexit related decision of this parliament. A decade after the financial crisis we are still experiencing its consequences in much lower living standards than we might have expected and also in much lower levels of government spending. After facing the biggest deficit in peacetime history, since
2010 the government has implemented the biggest set of spending cuts since at least the 1940s. Yet in many ways governments since 2010 have followed exactly the priorities of previous administrations such that health is taking an ever growing fraction of all spending. Thomas Pope will trace the changes in public finances and public spending, set out some of the options and challenges in the forthcoming spending review, as well as looking at opposition policy. He will argue that future pressures on public spending are unlikely to be accommodated unless the size of the state finally grows or our demands on it change dramatically.

Please contact the seminar organisers
Philip Arestis (pa267@cam.ac.uk) and Michael Kitson (mk24@cam.ac.uk) in the event of a query

Cambridge Realist Workshop - Beatrice Sasha Kobow, Trevor Wedman and Bahar Araz - A Panel Discussion on 'The Nature of Value'
2019-02-25 19:30 - 21:00 | Newnham College, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Speaker: Beatrice Sasha Kobow, Trevor Wedman and Bahar Araz
A Panel Discussion on ‘The Nature of Value’
Drinks available from 7:30 pm, talk starts at 8pm.

St Catharine’s Political Economy Seminar - 'Why Did Economists Fail to Predict the Arab Uprisings?’ by Hassan Hakimian
2019-02-27 18:00 - 19:30 | Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College, St Catharine's College, Cambridge, cb21rl, United Kingdom
Date: Wednesday, 27 February 2019
Time: 18:00 -19:30
Speaker: Hassan Hakimian
Talk Title: ‘Why Did Economists Fail to Predict the Arab Uprisings?’
Location: Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College
All are welcome. The seminar series is supported by the Cambridge Journal of Economics and the Economics and Policy Group at the Judge Business School.
Speaker:
Hassan Hakimian is Director of the London Middle East Institute and a Reader in Economics at SOAS, University of London. He has published on Middle Eastern economies with a special focus on Iran as well as on human resources and labour markets. His most recent book (co-edited with Parvin Alizadeh) is Iran and the Global Economy: Petro Populism, Islam and Economic Sanctions (Routledge, 2014). His current research is focused on inclusive growth in the MENA region and the economics of Arab uprisings. Hassan Hakimian is a Founding member and currently the President of the ‘International Iranian Economic Association (IIEA)’ and a Research Fellow and member of the Advisory Committee of the ‘Economic Research Forum (ERF)’ in Cairo. He is the Founder and Series Editor for the ‘Routledge Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa’, which he launched in 2003 and is currently editing the Routledge Handbook on the Middle East Economy.
Talk Overview:
Economists have a less than happy record of predicting economic crises. Forecasting political upheavals is arguably even more of a challenge. This is partly conceptual since the mainstream economics’ focus on the equilibrium-seeking behaviour of homo economicus guided by rationale choice is ill-equipped to deal with social and political ruptures and uprisings. It is also partly empirical. Economists’ interest in economic fundamentals may miss out important points about mass welfare and material conditions of the population at large. From this perspective a raft of pertinent questions arises in the context of the unforeseen but tumultuous uprisings that rocked Arab countries after 2010/11: Were economists oblivious (not looking)? Were they focused on the wrong indicators? Perhaps weak inferences led them astray? Were the data flawed or did their framework lack sufficient analytical insight?
This talk questions the link between political and economic cycles.Hassan Hakimian argues that as with the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the decade before the Arab uprisings experienced growth – not recession or stagnation – in both cases buoyed by favourable international oil prices. By formulating the case for understanding ‘inclusive growth’ in the region, Hassan Hakimian questions the popular perception that posits the roots of uprisings in economic downturns and immiserisation.
Please contact the seminar organisers Philip Arestis (pa267@cam.ac.uk) and Michael Kitson (m.kitson@jbs.cam.ac.uk) in the event of a query.

St Catharine’s Political Economy Seminar - 'Trade and Development: Why a 'No Deal' Brexit Would be an Economic Catastrophe' by Terry Barker
2019-03-06 18:00 - 19:30 | Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College, St Catharine's College, Cambridge, cb21rl, United Kingdom
Date: Wednesday, 6 March February 2019
Time: 18:00 -19:30
Speaker: Terry Barker
Talk Title: ‘’Trade and Development: Why a ‘No Deal’ Brexit Would be an Economic Catastrophe’’
Location: Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College
All are welcome. The seminar series is supported by the Cambridge Journal of Economics and the Economics and Policy Group at the Judge Business School.
Speaker:
Terry Barker is Professor and Founder of the Cambridge Trust for New Thinking in Economics and a Senior Department Fellow in the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge. He holds an Honorary Chair in the School of Environmental Sciences in the University of East Anglia, UK. He has written on various aspects of trade, including the variety hypothesis for international trade, international competitiveness, effective protection, the import content of UK final demand categories, and foreign trade in multi-sectoral models. See: https://econpapers.repec.org/RAS/pba547.htm
Talk Overview:
Trade is a feature of economic growth and development over location and time. The import function is a critical component in Keynesian theory for open economies. Banking and insurance historically developed in response to the gains and risks from intercity and international trade. Underlying the UK’s trade and development are the networks of institutions, known as the Single European Market, and many regulations and instruments at the EU level. A no-deal Brexit would inflict major damage on the UK’s trade and development and threatens the effectiveness and efficiency of the UK’s environment and energy policies. The seminar will address why the no-deal threat is so serious in terms of the fundamental question of how markets evolve to generate public and private goods and protect the environment. A no-deal damages the process of British specialisation and regulation of production, weakening innovation and raising polluting emissions. A lower exchange rate to offset weaker exporting will shift the economy away from high-value quality products and jobs towards more price-competitive goods and services. It will increase inequalities by raising food and energy prices. It will further concentrate activity in the south-east and lead to unemployment in areas relying on manufacturing for export.
Please contact the seminar organisers Philip Arestis (pa267@cam.ac.uk) and Michael Kitson (m.kitson@jbs.cam.ac.uk) in the event of a query.

Cambridge Realist Workshop - Christos Pitelis - The Ontology of Organisations, Markets, Business Ecosystems and Entrepreneurship
2019-03-11 19:30 - 21:00 | Newnham College, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Speaker: Christos Pitelis
Talk Title: ‘ The Ontology of Organisations, Markets, Business Ecosystems and Entrepreneurship’
Drinks available from 7:30 pm, talk starts at 8pm.

Frontiers of Heterodox Macroeconomics Policies Conference
2019-03-28 09:00 - 17:30
In the past few decades and intensified since the global financial crises of August 2007, heterodox macroeconomics has developed apace and its scope has broadened in a number of directions. The purpose of The Cambridge Trust for New Thinking in Economics’ next conference is to review the ‘state of the art’ in heterodox macroeconomics, its strengths and weaknesses and future directions. Heterodox macroeconomics has broadened its scope through gender macroeconomics, ecological macroeconomics and further incorporated income distribution and inequality into macroeconomics analysis. New macroeconomic models, especially the stock-flow consistent modelling have become widely used modes of analysis. Money and finance, monetary policy and fiscal policy as well as other policies have been discussed widely. The focus of this conference will be on all these issues and other as necessary.
This conference is being run by The Cambridge Trust for New Thinking in Economics.

St Catharine’s Political Economy Seminar – ‘The Global Commodity System in the 21st Century’ by Photis Lysandrou
2019-04-17 18:00 - 19:30 | Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College, St Catharine's College, Cambridge, cb21rl, United Kingdom
Date: Wednesday, 17 April 2019
Time: 18:00 -19:30
Speaker: Photis Lysandrou
Talk Title: ‘The Global Commodity System in the 21st Century’
Location: Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College
All are welcome. The seminar series is supported by the Cambridge Journal of Economics and the Economics and Policy Group at the Judge Business School.
Speaker:
Photis Lysandrou is Research Professor at City University Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC), Department of International Politics, City University of London. His current research interests are in the areas of the global finance, shadow banking, corporate governance and the political economy of Europe. His recent journal publications include “The Colonisation of the Future: An Alternative View of Financialisation and its Portents”, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, December 2016, and “The Explosive Growth of the US ABCP Market Between 2004 and 2007: A Search for Yield Story” (co-author, Mimoza Shabani), Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, March, 2017. His most recent book is ‘Commodity: The Global Commodity System in the 21st Century’ published by Routledge.
Talk Overview:
The purpose of this contribution is to provide a generalising into the contemporary global economic condition. To this end, it deploys an analytical framework whose basic unit of analysis is the commodity principle as defined by Karl Marx. During Marx’s lifetime that principle was only dominant in a few regions and even then merely encompassed the labour power and capital capacities in addition to their material outputs. By the end of the 20th century the commodity principle had not only been stretched to encompass the entire globe and but also deepened to encompass the public capacity of government in addition to the private capacities and financial securities in addition to material goods and services. Thus the contemporary global economic condition is viewed from the standpoint of this newly emergent global commodity system. The seminar will first discuss the structure, genesis and operation of the global commodity system before concluding with some proposals for controlling the system. The key proposal will be a call for the establishment of a global tax authority charged with the dual responsibility of coordinating national tax regimes and of implanting a global wealth tax.
Please contact the seminar organisers Philip Arestis (pa267@cam.ac.uk) and Michael Kitson m.kitson@jbs.cam.ac.uk) in the event of a query.

St Catharine’s Political Economy Seminar – ‘Industrial Policy in the UK' by Diane Coyle
2019-04-24 18:00 - 19:30 | Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College, St Catharine's College, Cambridge, cb21rl, United Kingdom
Date: Wednesday, 24 April 2019
Time: 18:00 -19:30
Speaker: Diane Coyle
Talk Title: ‘Industrial Policy in the UK’
Location: Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College
All are welcome. The seminar series is supported by the Cambridge Journal of Economics and the Economics and Policy Group at the Judge Business School.
Speaker:
Diane Coyle was previously Professor of Economics at the University of Manchester and has held a number of public service roles including Vice Chair of the BBC Trust (2006-2014), member of the Competition Commission (2001-2009), and member of the Migration Advisory Committee (2009-2014).
Diane Coyle is currently a member of the Natural Capital Committee, an expert adviser to the National Infrastructure Commission and a member of the Council of Economic Advisers. Diane Coyle was awarded a CBE for her contribution to the public understanding of economics in the 2018 New Year Honours. Diane Coyle is heading research in the fields of public policy economics, technology, industrial strategy and global inequality.
Diane Coyle is currently the Bennett Professor of Public Policy, and Fellow of Churchill College, University of Cambridge.
Talk Overview:
The disparity between the least and most productive regions in the UK is wide by the standards of many other OECD economies. While there are many contributory factors to the poor economic outcomes of many UK regions, this paper argues that the concentration of public investment is in and around London and the South East. The appraisal process for infrastructure investment projects follows the methodological set out in the Treasury’s Green Book, with major funding allocation decisions almost wholly centralised. In this paper, Diane Coyle argues that this methodology has reinforced the regional imbalance of the UK economy; that recent changes to the appraisal methods are welcome but unlikely by themselves to redress the London bias in infrastructure decisions; and that although evidence-based appraisal is important, infrastructure investments also need to be based on a strategic view about economic development for the whole of the UK.
Please contact the seminar organisers Philip Arestis (pa267@cam.ac.uk) and Michael Kitson m.kitson@jbs.cam.ac.uk) in the event of a query.

The 11th Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES) Annual PhD Student Conference
2019-05-28 19:00 - 21:00 | Goldsmiths, University of London, London, SE14 6NW, United Kingdom
The Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES) is calling for participants to its 11th Annual PhD Student Conference on 28 May 2019, 9am-7pm. Presenters will be PhD students in their second and third year who are currently enrolled in a PhD programme, and are working on topics relevant to Post Keynesian economics and political economy.
The aim is to give an opportunity to students to present a draft paper out of their PhD dissertation and receive feedback from senior researchers, as well as other students. We invite submission of novel contributions at the stage of pre-publication. Thus, we expect completed dissertation chapters or papers for submission rather than literature reviews. Note that we usually do not accept dissertation outlines or papers based on Master theses for presentation.
Please submit an abstract of a paper (about 250 words) and a brief cover letter describing your research interests, dissertation and the name and email address of a potential referee (who could be your PhD supervisor) by email to g.galanis@gold.ac.uk. The deadline for submissions is 31 March 2019. Applicants will be informed by mid-April. Please also note that we will ask for full papers on 6 May, so please submit an abstract only if you can meet the deadline for the full paper.
The PhD Student Conference will be followed by the Annual PKES Workshop at Goldsmiths on 29 May 2019. All students are welcome to attend. The programme of the Annual Workshop will be available on http://www.postkeynesian.net/ index.html in due course.
Please note that there is no participation fee.
Location
Goldsmiths, University of London, SE14 6NW
Deptford Town Hall, Room B
Accommodation
We are unable to make arrangements for accommodation. The closest hotel to the venue is the Staycity Aparthotel Deptford Bridge. Please arrange your own booking.
Conference organising committee:
Dr Giorgos Galanis, Goldsmiths, University of London
Dr Nina Kaltenbrunner, University of Leeds
Dr Christina Wolf, Kingston University

29th PKES Annual Workshop
2019-05-29 10:00 - 18:00 | Goldsmiths, University of London, London, SE14 6NW, United Kingdom
The 29th PKES annual workshop will take place at Goldsmiths, University of London (Room LG01 Professor Stuart Hall Building New Cross, London, SE14 6NW) at 10.00 – 18.00 on Wednesday 29 May. The provisional programme is available at: http://www.postkeynesian.net/event/29032019-29th-pkes-annual-workshop
Speakers include: Aurelie Charles, Andreas Joseph, Sue Konzelmann, Maria Nikolaidi, Özlem Onaran, Walter Paternesi Meloni, Hector Pollitt, Sara Reis and Ron Smith.
If you are interested in participating, please register by sending an email to: G.Galanis@gold.ac.uk.
Tea and coffee will be provided and we would be delighted if you could join us for dinner afterwards (at own expense).
The organising Committee
Giorgos Galanis, Maria Nikolaidi and Engelbert Stockhammer

8th PKES Summer School - Introduction to Post-Keynesian Economics and Political Economy
2019-06-26 - 2019-06-28 | Greenwich University
8th PKES Summer School – Introduction to Post-Keynesian Economics and Political Economy
University of Greenwich
Room None, Park Row, SE10 9LS, London.
26 Jun 2019 9:30 a.m. –28 Jun 2019 4:30 p.m.
This three-day summer school at the University of Greenwich introduces Post-Keynesian Economics as an alternative to mainstream neoclassical economic theory and neoliberal economic policy. Key assumptions in Post Keynesian Economics are that individuals face fundamental uncertainty about the future; there is a central role for ‘animal spirits’ in the determination of investment decisions; inflation is the result of unresolved distributional conflicts; money is an endogenous creation of the private banking system; unemployment is determined by effective demand on the goods markets; financial markets are prone to periodic boom-bust cycles.
Post Keynesian theory is part of a broader Political Economy approach which highlights the social conflict and power relations between classes such as labour, capital and finance and social groups stratified along the lines of gender and ethnicity. Economic analysis should thus be rooted in a historic and institutional setting.
The summer school is aimed at students of economics and social sciences. As the aim of Post Keynesian Economics and Political Economy ultimately is to provide the foundation for progressive economic policies, it may be of interest for a broader audience.
Program
Wednesday, 26 June, 9.30am – 6.30 pm

Welcome and opening
Post Keynesian Economics, Introduction & Overview
(Engelbert Stockhammer, King’s College London)
Effective Demand vs Says Law in Marx, Keynes and Kalecki
(Tomas Rotta, University of Greenwich)
Economic Policy in Europe
(Özlem Onaran, University of Greenwich)
Panel Discussion: Post Keynesian Economic Policy
(Engelbert Stockhammer, Tomas Rotta, Özlem Onaran)

Thursday, 27 June, 9.30am – 6.00pm

Development in Post Keynesian and Marxist theories
(Christina Wolf, Kingston University)
Money in the Economy: A Post-Keynesian Perspective
(Jo Michell, University of the West of England)
Distributional and Ecological Challenges to our Economic System
(Rafael Wildauer, University of Greenwich)
Student Working Groups

Friday, 28 June, 10.30am – 4.30pm

Post-Keynesian and Political Economy Approaches to Economic Policy: Can Global Capitalism be Tamed?
(Gary Dymski, Leeds University)
Student working groups in preparation of the Concluding Panel
Concluding panel: The State of Political Economy and Progressive Economic Policy. Open questions from the workshop
(Engelbert Stockhammer and Gary Dymski)

In order to book tickets please use the online store.
There is a reduced fee if you become a member of PKES (See the the membership section here. Any current university student is eligible for membership at £10 per annum).
NOTE: there are only 20 tickets including accommodation available which will be sold on a first-come first-served basis.
Ticket categories:

Workshop only (no accommodation): £25 (PKES members) / £45 (non-PKES members)
Workshop + accommodation for 3 nights (Wed-Thu, 25/06-27/06). Early Bird registration until 26 May: £60 (PKES members) / £80 (non-PKES members)
Workshop + accommodation for 3 nights (Wed-Thu, 25/06-27/06). After 26 May: £95 (PKES members) / £110 (non-PKES members)

Organising committee
This event is co-organized by the Post-Keynesian Economics Society (PKES), the Institute of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability(PEGFA) and Rethinking Economics Greenwich. Vital financial support has been received from the Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust.
The organising committee consists of Christina Wolf, Kingston University; Engelbert Stockhammer, King’s College London; Rafael Wildauer, Alexander Guschanski, Ines Heck and Thomas Rabensteiner, all University of Greenwich and Jo Michell, University of the West of England.

Rethinking the Political Economy of Place Conference
2019-07-11 - 2019-07-12 | McGrath Centre, St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Rethinking the Political Economy of Place: Challenges of Productivity, Inclusion and Power Conference
This is the sixth Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society Conference and it will be held on 11-12 July 2019 at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge.
The shifting landscape of concerns and concepts in economic politics in places around the world, calls for a rethinking of the political economy of place. Two of the key challenges – currently faced by cities, regions, nations and supranational institutions around the world – are improving productivity and fostering inclusion. This conference is looking to shed new light on these challenges, in particular when these two challenges are taken in conjunction. We furthermore aim to set these challenges in a broader context. Relating these challenges to the implicit and explicit power structures and processes, prevailing at various scales within contemporary capitalism.
The conference welcomes contributions and has a Call for Papers open.

EAEPE Conference 2019
2019-09-12 08:00 - 2019-09-15 17:00
The 31st Annual EAEPE Conference 2019
30 years after the fall of the Berlin wall – What happened to Europe/Where does Europe stand today? What is new in economics?
Warsaw, Poland
12-15 September 2019
Keynote Speakers
Geoffrey M. Hodgson, Loughborough University London
Smita Srinivas, The Open University UK & University College London
For further details see:
https://eaepe.org/?page=events&side=annual_conference&sub=eaepe_2019_cfp
Young Scholars Pre-conference
11 – 12 September 2019, in Warsaw, Poland
The pre-conference will be organised in a series of workshops aiming at generating interactive discussions and, therefore, the participants are expected to actively contribute to the discussions. The workshops will last from three to six hours. Participants will be able to attend 2-3 workshops from a list.
Further details for them young scholars pre-conference event are:
https://eaepe.org/?page=events&side=annual_conference&sub=eaepe2019_preconference

St Catharine’s Political Economy Seminar – ‘A Democratic Measure of National Income' by Martin Weale
2019-10-16 18:00 - 20:30 | Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College, St Catharine's College, Cambridge, cb21rl, United Kingdom
Date: Wednesday, 16 October 2019
Time: 18:00 -19:30
Speaker: Martin Weale
Talk Title: ‘’A Democratic Measure of National Income’’
Location: Ramsden Room, St Catharine’s College
All are welcome. The seminar series is supported by the Cambridge Journal of Economics and the Economics and Policy Group at the Judge Business School.
Speaker:
Martin Weale is Professor at King’s College, London. He joined King’s College in 2016 after completing two three-year terms as a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. He had previously been the Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research from 1995 to 2010. In 2011 Queen Mary, University of London appointed him a part-time Professor of Economics – a position he held until 2016.
Until 1995 he was a lecturer in Economics at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Clare College (B.A. 1977, Sc.D. 2006). He was a member of the Statistics Commission from 2000 to 2008 and of the Board for Actuarial Standards from 2006 to 2011. Weale was appointed CBE for his services to Economics in 1999 and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in 2001. City University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2007.
Talk Overview:
National income per capita is widely used as the basis for comparing living standards in different countries. But conventional measures of national income growth are plutocratic. The growth in the incomes of people with initially high income had more influence on the aggregate than does the growth of the incomes of people with initially low income. This paper argues the case for constructing a democratic measure of national income growth, the growth rate of the geometric mean of income per household – one which gives equal weight to the growth experience of each household, whether its initial income is high or low.
To do this means allocating the whole of national income to households, and a method of doing this is suggested. While the Living Conditions and Food Survey is the primary source, issues of under-reporting have to be addressed. This is done by means of stochastic imputation on the basis of covariates. In order to produce a democratic measure of real income growth, it is necessary to compute a democratic deflator – based on the average of each household’s expenditure shares rather than shares in total consumption. Deflation of the geometric mean of each household’s income by this deflator makes it possible to calculate a democratic measure of real income growth. As a result of declining household income inequality since the economic crisis this measure of real income has grown slightly faster than the plutocratic measure since 2006.
Please contact the seminar organisers Philip Arestis (pa267@cam.ac.uk) and Michael Kitson (mk24@cam.ac.uk) in the event of a query

Cambridge Realist Workshop – Tony Lawson - Really Rethinking Economics
2019-10-21 20:00 - 22:00 | Newnham College, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Speaker: Tony Lawson
Talk Title: ‘Really Rethinking Economics’
Drinks available from 7:30 pm, talk starts at 8pm.
Held in the Cynthia Beerbower Room at Newnham College

St Catharine’s Political Economy Seminar – ‘The Evolution of Sectarianism: A Political Economy Approach’ by Sebastian Ille
2019-10-30 18:00 - 19:30
Date: Wednesday, 30 October 2019
Time: 18:00 -19:30
Speaker: Sebastian Ille
Talk Title: ” The Evolution of Sectarianism: A Political Economy Approach”
Location: Rushmore Room, St Catharine’s College
All are welcome. The seminar series is supported by the Cambridge Journal of Economics and the Economics and Policy Group at the Judge Business School.
Speaker:
Sebastian Ille is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the New College of the Humanities and Editor-in-Chief of International Social Science Journal. His areas of expertise and interest focus on the impact of different types of rationality and interaction patterns on the dynamics defining institutions under decentralized decision-making. He also studies the elements of conflict, especially the factors leading to revolutions and new social contracts. His fields of research include Institutional Economics, Behavioural Economics, Development Economics, Identity Economics, Evolutionary Game Theory, Complex Systems and Agent-Based Modelling. He has published on various topics, including theoretical papers on stochastic stability and meta-rationality, and interdisciplinary research on identity economics, rational atrocities and ISIS, as well as forced private tutoring in Egypt. He is currently working on topics related to the Arab Spring in Egypt and on a textbook for social scientists on various mathematical approaches to modelling social systems and social change.
Talk Overview
The tendency of humans to cooperate for reasons other than self-interest has long intrigued social scientists, leading to a substantial literature in recent years. However, its complement – sectarianism – has not received much attention in the economics literature despite its significant economic impact, its growing importance in recent years and its socio-economic fundamentals. Based on an evolutionary approach, the talk illustrates under which conditions sectarianism and sectarian conflict constitute an evolving property of a social system. The underlying model shows in which manner actions, preferences, economic institutions and sectarian identities co-evolve and suggests an extended constructivist perspective while contesting classical primordial or instrumentalist perspectives. Contrary to common perception, I argue that sectarianism and sectarian conflict are not necessarily driven by a conflict over religious ideologies, but by socio-economic and political grievances. Additionally, the history of interaction and external exertion of influence are key to explaining the tendency for bigotry and hostility.
Please contact the seminar organisers Philip Arestis (pa267@cam.ac.uk) and Michael Kitson (mk24@cam.ac.uk) in the event of a query.
