Journées de l’Economie

I was at the Journées de l’économie in Lyon last week: this is a popular economics festival at which literally thousands of members of the public show up to listen to people like yours truly.

I was on a Brexit panel on the Wednesday, and tried to explain to a French audience how serious the issue is for us (I start about 30 minutes in, but the whole thing is worth listening to; I thought Jon Henley in particular, who preceded me, was really excellent and made all the points you would have wanted to make yourself); there was a more academic session on a very French topic (“Mutations du capitalisme“) on the Thursday,  at which Daniel Cohen made a couple of points that I thought were very thought-provoking (and also very French).

On Dividing Large Numbers by Other Large Numbers

Conservative backbench MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, welcoming today’s Economists for Free Trade report predicting a bright post-Brexit future for the UK economy, remarked that the loss of the UK’s £9 billion per annum net contribution to the budget would render the EU ‘effectively insolvent’, according to the Guardian.

They should therefore be threatened with immediate suspension of the UK’s payments, forcing the EU to do a deal. Nine billion divided by the EU-27 population of 450 million works out at £20 per capita per annum.

Mr. Rees-Mogg has been described as a possible future leader of the Conservative party and has performed strongly in straw polls of party activists.

Is it OK if I lie down for a while?

Trade and violence

My latest column in Critical Quarterly is available here.