Robert Allen’s new book “The British industrial revolution in global perspective” is a major intellectual breakthrough. Allen, Oxford professor of economic history, has used long-term price data only now available though computer database technology to demonstrate definitively why the Industrial Revolution happened when and where it did. The causes? Imperialism, cheap coal and happy sheep. […]

One of the things that has protected us from a re-run of the Great Depression — until now — has been the unipolarity of the global economy, its domination by the United States. Since 1945, the United States has played a generally benign role in pushing for free trade and free capital movements, because it […]

Citigroup has been restructured with $50 billion of public money without significant reform to its operations, the hedge fund industry had its best month in nine years in May and Goldman Sachs is said to be considering giving up its banking license. The world’s monetary and fiscal authorities appear by their feckless policies to have […]

Productivity growth, the most mysterious of economic statistics, was announced Thursday for the first quarter of 2009 — revised upwards from 0.8% to 1.6%. After a quarter century of stellar growth from 1948 to 1973 productivity growth suddenly collapsed, and remained low for the next decade. Then after 1982 it recovered somewhat, accelerating further slightly […]

To keep the public blaming Wall Street for their current miseries, the Obama administration has announced that it is reviewing banking regulation, with a view to appointing a single regulator for the financial services industry. Skeptical as I am of the value of regulation, I am only too well aware that different regulatory systems make […]