The Capitalism Project [Regent College] is undertaking a series of reflections on the loss of a sense of place in modern society. The Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann in his book The Land comments, “The sense of being lost, displaced, and homeless is pervasive in contemporary culture. The yearning to belong somewhere, to have a home, to be in a safe place, is a deep and moving pursuit.” The theologian Oliver O’Donovan explicitly connects this ‘homelessness’ with consequences of the modern economy: “Homo Oeconomicus [economic man], that unspiritual clod, has become a wanderer en masse.” This series will attempt to investigate the claims of Brueggemann and O’Donovan and consider the relationship between the loss of a sense of place and capitalism.
Categories:
briefing, commentary
Tags: community, firm, global, individual, moral
http://voxeu.org/ Reported here by: SPMG, 3 August 2009
How did the rating agencies come to have such a prominent role in the regulation of securities? This column traces their history back to the Great Depression. Ironically, the agencies became a regulatory instrument to address concerns about securities originators’ conflicts of interest, the very problem plaguing the agencies today. The lesson may be that no fixed regulatory solution is durable in the long run.
Categories:
briefing
Tags: firm, global, macro
http://voxeu.org/ Reported here by: SPMG, 3 August 2009
Most narratives of the crisis start with problems in the financial sector that then spilled over into the real economy. This column looks at the real side first and shows that labour productivity growth declined significantly in the years prior to the crisis, particularly in the US construction sector. Financial markets may have failed in that they didn’t detect the deterioration of structural productivity trends in the early 2000s.
Categories:
briefing
Tags: global, macro, united states
A new CEPR Policy Insight takes a close look at the Keynesian theory underlying the policy of fiscal stimulus being undertaken or considered in many countries, led by the US.
Categories:
briefing
Tags: community, firm, global, individual, macro
http://voxeu.org/ Reported here by: SPMG, 3 August 2009
Justin Wolfers of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about happiness economics – the state of knowledge; the explosion of data; the debate about the Easterlin paradox; the impact of inequality and the business cycle on people’s happiness; and the implications for public policy. The interview was recorded at the Centre for Economic Performance in London in June 2009.
Categories:
briefing
Tags: community, firm, global, individual, macro, moral
http://voxeu.org/ Reported here by: SPMG, 3 August 2009
Past oil price spikes associated with Middle East conflicts and OPEC embargos were each followed by a global economic recession. This column argues that the onset of the current economic downturn of is also partly attributable to a sharp increase in the price of oil. Moreover, the interaction of high oil prices and housing problems contributed to the severity of the downturn.
Categories:
briefing
Tags: global, macro