Gary McGann [Smurfit CEO] gives his views on the Irish economy in this FT video .
View from the Top
- Post author By Philip Lane
- Post date January 11, 2010
- Categories In Economic Performance
- Tags Gary McGann
- 1 Comment on View from the Top
Category: Economic Performance
Paul Krugman has a piece today that is aimed squarely at Americans and their prejudices regarding Europe. But his point that social democracy and good economic performance are not mutually incompatible could be backed up with more evidence than his simple US-EU15 comparison. Within the EU15, the Scandinavians and Germans are fairly obviously doing better than average. And when comparing EU-15 growth rates over time, the fact that jumps out is how rapid were the growth rates experienced during the 1950s and 1960s, when the welfare state was being constructed and consolidated.
There is also a vast literature demonstrating that social democracy, far from undermining the market, increases political support for it; and that income inequality makes ordinary people hostile to trade, immigration, and markets generally.
Fairness matters.
The release can be found here.
While 2007 seems a long time ago it is interesting to see that county level household disposable incomes have been converging (since 2001 the differences between counties have converged back roughly to mid 90’s levels) but GVA has continued to diverge.
You can find my views in this article for Business & Finance.
Hyun Shin of Princeton has been among the most insightful analysts of the global crisis. He now has taken on a new role: helping Korea in its presidency of the G20 during 2010, as chief advisor on international economics to the President of Korea .
You can learn more about his research here.
The announcement of the new position is here.