Economic History Archives - Philosophy of Money

Reframing climate policy: a reply to Simon Wren-Lewis

5th March 2023

It is just over a year since we published Supercharge Me: Net Zero Faster, in the same week that Russia invaded the Ukraine. Six months later, the United States passed the Inflation Recovery Act. Both of these ...

Highs & lows of economics: Kilkenny, crypto, and inflation

Eric Lonergan

13th November 2022

Austerity, Climate policy, Economic History, Monetary Policy, Theory & Other Problems

Economics keeps letting me down. The decade or so following the financial crisis spawned thousands of papers researching the financial system. I had a sinking feeling that none of it would help. Policy-making ...

The wrong chapter of the textbook

Eric Lonergan & Corinne Sawers

9th January 2022

Climate policy, Economic History

4

Climate policy: where economics went wrong Regular readers of this blog will be aware of a twelve month hiatus since I last posted anything. There is a good reason. Corinne Sawers, a sustainability expert, and...

Pandemania

Eric Lonergan

31st January 2021

Economic History, Finance & Asset Pricing

3

When will the GameStop? It is worth reflecting on the first major panic on the New York Stock Exchange in 1901. On that occasion two magnates, James Hill and Edward Harriman, one supported by Standard Oil, the ...

Marx has the last laugh

Eric Lonergan

26th July 2020

Economic History, Finance & Asset Pricing, Theory & Other Problems

2

I cannot think of a better interlocutor than Chris Dilow. He raises another set of interesting questions in his reply to my reply. I am in danger of completely forgetting our original divergence of thought, but...

Angrynomics: a reply to Chris Dillow

Eric Lonergan

25th July 2020

Economic History, Theory & Other Problems, Uncategorised

3

Chris Dillow writes perhaps the most interesting economics blog I know. Its scope is considerable, and despite his declaration of bias - he self-identifies as a ‘marxist’ - he is typically empirical. His recent...

How long secular stability?

Eric Lonergan

29th January 2020

Economic History, Finance & Asset Pricing, Monetary Policy

8

Economics is a curious field of study. For a subject that focuses so much on rational behaviour it is distinctly human. The tribalism borders on parody - post-keynesians, new keynesians, liberal, conservative, ...

The ethics of a Brexit referendum

Eric Lonergan

25th January 2019

Articles, Economic History, Sample Of One

5

The debate over Brexit has been dominated by propaganda. To date, I have had sympathy with the one ethical argument, which has been made most effectively by Mehreen Khan, for leaving the EU. It is shared by man...

If you don’t like trade deficits – tax the rich?

Eric Lonergan

12th April 2018

Austerity, Economic History, Money in Europe, Theory & Other Problems

1

Has the word ‘deficit’ done more damage than any other in economics? Deficits are bad, surpluses are good. In economics, nothing could be further from the truth. How can there be virtue, if every virtuous act r...

r* and the range of irrelevance

Eric Lonergan

29th December 2017

Definitions of Money, Economic History, Finance & Asset Pricing, Monetary Policy

6

Despite the fact that interest rates determine all asset valuations, there is nothing close to a general theory of interest rate determination. The rule of thumb when I started working in financial markets was ...

Reframing climate policy: a reply to Simon Wren-Lewis

Highs & lows of economics: Kilkenny, crypto, and inflation

The wrong chapter of the textbook

Pandemania

Marx has the last laugh

Angrynomics: a reply to Chris Dillow

How long secular stability?

The ethics of a Brexit referendum

If you don’t like trade deficits – tax the rich?

r* and the range of irrelevance

Reviews of Eric’s book

CNBC: market sell-off is ‘noise’

Monetary policy & babysitting: why rates are so low, and ‘what’s next?’