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MARTIN WOLF
Economists’ Forum
Martin Wolf’s forum: Leading economists from around the world debate issues raised by Martin Wolf, associate editor and chief economics commentator at the FT
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Martin Wolf is 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. He won the Ludwig Erhard Prize in 2009. He won the “Commentariat of the Year” prize at the inaugural UK Comment Awards in October 2009.
His most recent publications are Why Globalization Works (Yale University Press, 2004) and Fixing Global Finance (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008 and Yale University Press, 2009).
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Audio HomeMartin Wolf’s latest columns
- -Tax the windfall banking bonuses
The case for generous subventions to banks is to restore the financial system to health. It is not to enrich bankers, particularly not those engaged in the sorts of trading that destroyed the system in the first place, writes Martin Wolf
Grim truths Obama should have told Hu
Obama should have made clear the need for China to revalue its currency and rebalance the global economy when he met Hu Jintao, writes Martin Wolf. He could reasonably threaten punitive action, such is the need for change
Victory in the cold war was a start as well as an ending
Has capitalism failed, as communism did? No. Some transition countries are in crisis; but transition itself is not. Liberal democracies and market economies can reform and adapt. They have shown these qualities before. They must do so again, writes Martin Wolf
Time for a debate on immigration
Diversity brings social benefits, but also costs, arising from declining trust and erosion of a sense of shared values, writes Martin Wolf
Private behaviour will shape our path to fiscal stability
It is idiotic to discuss the reduction of the huge fiscal deficits, without considering the nature of the offsetting adjustments in the private and external sectors. Some adjustments would be desirable, but others would be extremely perilous, writes Martin Wolf
How mistaken ideas helped to bring the economy down
The era when central banks could target inflation and assume that what was happening in asset and credit markets was no concern of theirs is over. Not only can asset prices be valued; they have to be, writes Martin Wolf
Why curbing finance is hard to do
There is a way of making finance safe: deposits would be 100 per cent reserve backed; and the liabilities of other investment vehicles would be adjusted for the market value of their assets at all times. Banking would disappear, writes Martin Wolf
How to manage the gigantic financial cuckoo in our nest
This recovery has been no accident. When central bank money is almost free, prices of risky assets are recovering, competitors have disappeared or are weakened, making money is a relatively simple matter for the strong survivors, argues Martin Wolf
The rumours of the dollar’s death are much exaggerated
Recent figures have proved that the dollar’s fall is a symptom of success, not of failure. All the same, the dollar-based global monetary system is defective. It would be good to start building alternative arrangements, writes Martin Wolf
Britain’s phoney debate on slashing spending
The UK deficit will hit 11.6% this year while the US’s reaches 12.5%, writes Martin Wolf. The transatlantic cousins are now the terrible fiscal twins. Tightening is needed, but it must not come too soon.
