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MARTIN WOLF
Economists’ Forum
Seven habits finance regulators must acquire: Far tighter regulation is desirable in the longer-run interests of both the financial sector and the public, says Martin Wolf. So what, then, should such regulation look like?
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Martin Wolf is associate editor and chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, London. He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2000 “for services to financial journalism”. Mr Wolf is an associate member of the governing body of Nuffield College, Oxford, honorary fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, an honorary fellow of the Oxford Institute for Economic Policy (Oxonia) and a special professor at the University of Nottingham. He has been a forum fellow at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos since 1999 and a member of its International Media Council since 2006. He was made a Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, by Nottingham University in July 2006. He was made a Doctor of Science (Economics) of London University, honoris causa, by the London School of Economics in December 2006.
Mr Wolf was joint winner of the Wincott Foundation senior prize for excellence in financial journalism for 1989 and 1997. He won the RTZ David Watt memorial prize for 1994, the “Accenture Decade of Excellence” at the Business Journalist of the Year Awards of 2003 and the Newspaper Feature of the Year Award at the Workworld Media Awards 2003. On December 1 2005 he was given First Magazine’s “Special Advocacy Award” at its annual “Award for Responsible Capitalism”. In January 2008, he won the AMEC Lifetime achievement Award at the Workworld Media Awards for 2007. He came second equal in the Royal Statistical Society’s awards for statistical excellence in journalism for 2008, in the category for print and online journalism. He won the “Commentator of the Year” award at the Business Journalist of the Year Awards of 2008. He was also placed among the world’s 100 leading public policy intellectuals by the British magazine Prospect and the US magazine, Foreign Policy in May 2008.
His most recent publication is Why Globalization Works (Yale University Press, 2004). - -
Seven habits finance regulators must acquire
Unless we are comfortable with a crisis every five years or so, financial regulation must be radically reconsidered. Tighter rules are desirable in the longer-run interests of the banking industry itself let alone the public’s. What should such regulation look like, asks Martin Wolf
Why Britain’s economy will change
Martin Wolf discusses the Bank of England’s response to the credit crisis and the state of the UK economy
Food crisis is a chance to reform global agriculture
Nobody knows how long these shocks will last, but they demand rapid policy changes across the globe. We must choose between fragmenting markets further and integrating them, between helping the poor and letting even more starve, writes Martin Wolf
A turning point in managing the world’s economy
How do we persuade citizens the rise of the emerging countries, the brightest story of our era, is to be welcomed, asks Martin Wolf
Let Britain’s housing bubble burst
It is high time the British realised a people cannot become rich by selling ever more expensive houses to one another, writes Martin Wolf
Why financial regulation is both difficult and essential
A voluntary banking code is almost certainly not worth the paper it is written on. If regulation is to be effective, it must cover all relevant institutions and the entire balance sheet and, not least, it must make finance less pro-cyclical, writes Martin Wolf
Why Greenspan does not bear most of the blame
The former chairman of the Federal Reserve, once lauded as the ‘maestro’, has, to his discomfort, become the scapegoat for the crisis. Much of the criticism is highly unfair, writes Martin Wolf, but there are areas where he is wrong
Four falsehoods on UK immigration
While the economic arguments of a high level of net immigration are weak, this does not mean that substantial gross immigration, particularly of skilled people, is undesirable. However, while it is possible to welcome mass immigration and to preserve every leaf of grass, it is incoherent to attempt both at once, writes Martin Wolf
The prudent will have to pay for the profligate
On the upside, the fairy government-mother stood on the sidelines, applauding the enthusiasm of her charges. On the downside, she is dragged in, as risk-addiction turns into risk-aversion, writes Martin Wolf
The rescue of Bear Stearns marks liberalisation’s limit
For three decades we have moved towards market-driven financial systems. By its decision to rescue Bear Stearns, the Federal Reserve, the institution responsible for monetary policy in the US, chief protagonist of free-market capitalism, declared this era over, writes Martin Wolf
