Ariel Wirkierman (University of Sussex).

LINK TO SLIDES: https://www.soas.ac.uk/economics/events/economics-seminars/file120582.pdf

Varieties of Growth Regimes, Innovation Systems and Structural Changes in Europe: Challenges for XXI Century

This paper aims to provide an empirically grounded, fine grained picture of the varieties of growth regimes in Europe, and how this has gone hand in hand with patterns of structural change and the dynamics of national innovation systems. We disentangle some key nexus between the evolution of innovation, medium-term changes of production, employment, and profitability structures and on their interactions. We focus particularly on disentangling intrinsic and structural factors in the description of growth regimes, shifts in distributive relations and the extent to which these processes have resulted from the European innovation systems falling behind the technological frontier.

Ariel Wirkierman is a Research Fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU, University of Sussex) working on the EU Horizon 2020 ISIGrowth Project. In particular, he applies and develops Input-Output techniques and simulation models of industrial dynamics to analyse innovation, technical progress, structural change and income distribution.

He has previously been a post-doc researcher at the Department of Mathematical Sciences, Mathematical Finance and Econometrics (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Italy), designing and implementing algorithms and metrics in complex networks to study industry clusters and node centrality in interindustry networks.

Before his doctoral studies he worked as an economic officer at the Ministry of Economy and Production of Argentina, focusing on Regional Input-Output Analysis. Ariel holds a Licentiate in Economics (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina), Master in Economics (National Unviersity of La Plata, Argentina), PhD in Economics (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart).

Speaker(s): Ariel Wirkierman (University of Sussex), Gregor Semieniuk (SOAS)

Event Date:

22 March 2017

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Jeffrey Franks (IMF)

The global financial crisis has had major economic repercussions, some of which are still felt today. Global debt is at unprecedented levels, economic growth has not recovered to pre-crisis rates, and unemployment is only coming down slowly. During the crisis, many countries had to turn to the IMF for financial assistance to weather balance of payments problems. By providing financing linked to conditionality, IMF programs can help smooth economic adjustment and restore sustainable growth, enabling countries to regain market access. However, most countries’ roads to recovery have been bumpy, with some requiring continued support. To what extent does this reflect the severity of the economic downturn versus the inadequacy of IMF program design? Did IMF programs impose recessionary austerity, slash social spending and weaken social protection? The lecture will address these and other questions by sharing and drawing lessons from the IMF’s recent crisis experience.

Jeffrey Franks is Director of the IMF Europe Office and Senior Resident Representative to the European Union, based in Brussels. A 24 year veteran of the Fund, he has held numerous other assignments, including heading the resident offices in Ukraine and Ecuador, and leading teams on Pakistan, Romania, France, Belgium and Paraguay. He received his PhD in Political Economy and Government from Harvard, and has Master's degree from Princeton and Oxford universities.

Speaker(s): Jeffrey Franks (IMF), Ulrich Volz (SOAS)

Event Date:

15 March 2017

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This podcast has been edited.

Prof. Maureen Mackintosh (The Open University)

XI SOAS Industrial Development and Policy (IDP) Lecture.

Health sectors are big buyers of industrial commodities, so their funding, purchasing and market structures influence industrial development. Since health sectors are strongly shaped by policy, while manufacturing suppliers typically rely on domestic demand at least for initial growth, national health policies are necessarily also national industrial policies. Assuring universalist health care is one of the most inclusive interventions open to governments, so health-linked industries offer a potential

terrain for inclusive industrialisation. Yet in many low and middle income countries (LMICs), innovation and industrial development in health tend to be disequalising, given the current political economy of LMIC health sectors. The lecture uses evidence from recent work by Tanzanian, Kenyan and UK researchers to outline incentive structures in East African health sectors that interact with industrial development to determine its inclusionary or exclusionary nature, and draws implications for policy.

Maureen Mackintosh (Innovation, Knowledge and Development Research Centre, The Open University)

Organised by the Industrial Development and Policy Research Cluster –
SOAS IDP snd the SOAS Department of Economics

Speaker(s): Prof. Maureen Mackintosh (The Open University), Dr. Antonio Andreoni (SOAS)

Event Date:

08 March 2017

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Dr Claudio Borio (Bank for International Settlements)

What is wrong with the International Monetary and Financial System?

The speech will explore the Achilles heel of the international monetary and financial system, with specific reference to the role that the dominance of the US dollar may play. Based on that, it will then draw possible policy implications.

Claudio Borio is the Head of Monetary and Economic Department at the Bank for International Settlements.

Speaker(s): Dr Claudio Borio (BIS)

Event Date:

24 February 2017

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Prof. Jan Toporowski (SOAS University of London)

The publication of Anwar Shaikh’s book Capitalism, Competition, Conflict, Crises presents an opportunity to reconsider the classical theory of interest, on which much of the structure of the book is based (Shaikh 2016 chapter 10). This Note takes issue with the classical theory of interest that is the foundation of Shaikh’s monetary economics and the theory of bank profit that arises from that classical view. The Note argues that the classical theory of money applies to a very particular capitalist economy in which the monetary sector or banking are external to capitalist production. However, when credit is endogenous to capitalist production, the rate of interest is no longer governed by the rate of profit in the real economy, and the rate of profit of the banking sector does not depend on the actual rate of interest.

This Note does not claim to represent Shaikh’s book, or even its core argument. The criticism in this Note proceeds by describing the banking system in which the classical theory of interest holds true and then explaining how, in the credit system that emerged with capitalism, that classical theory of interest does not hold. The Note concludes by arguing that debt and interest perform a purely distributional function in a credit economy, unrelated to the rate of profit from production around which Shaikh builds his analysis.

Jan Toporowski is Professor of Economics and Finance at SOAS University of London.

Speaker(s): Prof. Jan Toporowski (SOAS), Dr. Gregor Semieniuk (SOAS)

Event Date:

01 March 2017

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Prof. Mushtaq Khan (SOAS University of London)

SOAS Economics Alumni Event.

The evening will start with welcome speeches by SOAS Director Baroness Valerie Amos CH and Pro-Director for Learning and Teaching Dr Deborah Johnston, Professor Mushtaq Khan, SOAS Professor of Economics, will deliver a short talk on:

"Doing Anti Corruption Differently: The New ACE Research Programme at SOAS"

The lecture will be followed by a reception light refreshments.

Celebrate SOAS's Centenary, network with your fellow alumni, and meet current Economics students & staff at this special event.

Speaker(s): Baroness Valerie Amos CH (SOAS Director), Prof. Mushtaq Khan (SOAS), Dr. Ulirch Volz (SOAS),

Event Date:

01 March 2017

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Dr. Ha-Joon Change (University of Cambridge)

The issue of production has almost disappeared from the development discourse in the last few decades. Discussing the shortcomings of the three main discourses that lie behind this - neo-liberalism, humanism, and post-industrialism - and enumerating the negative consequences of the neglect of production, Ha-Joon Chang will argue for a re-construction of the development discourse that takes production seriously.

Ha-Joon Chang teaches economics at the University of Cambridge. In addition to numerous journal articles and book chapters, he has published 15 authored books (four co-authored) and 10 edited books. His main books include The Political Economy of Industrial Policy, Kicking Away the Ladder, Bad Samaritans, 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism, and Economics: The User’s Guide. By the end of 2014, his writings will have been translated and published in 36 languages and 39 countries. Worldwide, his books have sold around 1.8 million copies. He is the winner of the 2003 Gunnar Myrdal Prize and the 2005 Wassily Leontief Prize. He was ranked no. 9 in the Prospectmagazine’s World Thinkers 2014 poll.

The Babbage Industrial Policy Network is an international forum bringing together experts from economics, engineering and operations management with a shared interest in manufacturing and industrial policy. The network is supported by the Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge.

Speaker(s): Dr Ha-Joon Change (University of Cambridge) Dr. Antonio Andreoni (SOAS)

Event Date:

11 December 2014

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Prof. Roberto Scazzieri, University of Bologna & Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.

Structural change is the most distinctive feature of classical political economy. The classical theories of increasing returns (Smith, Babbage) and of decreasing returns (Malthus, Ricardo, West) highlight a relationship between change and invariance that is at the root of the formation of the wealth of nations. This relationship makes the wealth of nations to reflect a proportionality condition between different productions subsystems (such as manufacturing vs. the primary sector). The proportionality condition provides a benchmark for investigating the dynamics of wealth of nations in terms of relative structural invariance, as the different components of a dynamic economy usually change at different rates, while some may not change at all. The criterion of relative structural invariance provides a unifying framework for assessing the relationship between local dynamics and systemic conditions, which is central to the contemporary theories of structural change. This criterion also provides a clue into the relationship between short-, medium-, and long-term dynamics, and into the possible alignments between the policy measures corresponding to the different time horizons.

Speaker(s): Prof. Roberto Scazzieri (University of Bologna & Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei), Dr. Antonio Andreoni (SOAS)

Event Date:

8 February 2017

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Prof. Mariana Mazzucato.

Professor Mazzucato's talk will look at the limits of market failure theory for addressing the role of policy in creating growth that is more ’smart’ (innovation-led), sustainable (more green) and inclusive (less inequality). It will focus on the lessons from the work of Karl Polanyi, evolutionary economics, and the innovation literature on ‘mission-oriented’ policy. Rather than seeing the role of policy as fixing different types of market failures (problems related to ‘public goods’, and positive and negative externalities), the role of policy will be posited in terms of the active shaping and creating of markets. Markets will be discussed in terms of ‘outcomes’ of interactions between heterogeneous agents (including different types of public and private organisations). After a theoretical discussion, the talk will focus on the implications of this approach for addressing key challenges around energy innovation, financial market reform, and inequality.

Professor Mariana Mazzucato (PhD) holds the RM Phillips chair in the Economics of Innovation at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) in the University of Sussex. Her recent book The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (Anthem, 2013) was on the 2013 Books of the Year list of the Financial Times. It focuses on the need to develop new frameworks to understand the role of the state in economic growth—and how to enable rewards from innovation to be just as ‘social’ as the risks taken. She is winner of the New Statesman SPERI Prize in Political Economy and in 2013 the New Republic called her one of the 'three most important thinkers about innovation'. She advises policymakers around the world on innovation-led growth and is a member of the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisors; a member of the World Economic Forum’s Council on the Economics of Innovation; and a permanent member of the European Commission’s expert group on Innovation for Growth (RISE).

This seminar is co-hosted with the Industrial Development and Policy Research Cluster - SOAS IDP, Department of Economics.

Speaker(s): Mariana Mazzucato (University of Sussex), Alfredo Saad Filho (SOAS), Ben Fine (SOAS)

Organiser: Professor Alfredo Saad Filho or Dr Feyzi Ismail

Event Date:

19 January 2016

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Nick Robins, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Across the world, there are growing efforts to connect the financial systems with the strategic goal of achieving sustainable development. Financial institutions, financial regulators and central banks are increasingly incorporating environmental and social factors into the activities. The G20 has championed green finance and the Financial Stability Board has promoted climate disclosure - both unthinkable a few years ago. This momentum is promising but remains insufficient. This lecture will review the evolution of this agenda, the role of the UN Environment's Finance Inquiry and some of the key that can be taken in 2017 to accelerate progress.

Nick Robins Biography:

Nick Robins works at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), where he is co-director of the inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System. The Inquiry promotes policies that better connect the financial system with long-term sustainable development. The Inquiry published its first global report. The Financial System We Need, in October 2015 and the second edition, From Momentum to Transformation, in September 2016. His particular focus has been on national initiatives in Brazil, the EU, France, India, Italy and the UK, along with action in key sectors such as banking, insurance and institutional investment.

Nick Robins has over 20 years' experience in the policy, research and financial dimensions of sustainable development. Before joining UNEP, he was Head of the Climate Change Centre of Excellence at HSBC in London from 2007 to 2014, where he produced investment research on issues such as lean tech and climate risk. In the Thomson Extel awards for European investment research, Nick was ranked as no 1 analyst for integrated climate change in 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Prior to HSBC, Nick was first head of Sustainable and Responsible Investment (SRI) research and then head of the SRI funds at Henderson Global Investors. At Henderson, he published the first ever carbon audit of an investment fund (2005) and co-designed the Industries of the Future fund. Nick has also worked for the International Institute of Environment and Development, the European Commission's Environment Directorate and was part of the original Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Nick has authored two books - The Corporation that Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational (2006) and Sustainable Investing: the Art of Long-Term Performance (with Cary Krosinsky, 2008). He has also produced numerous reports and has had articles published by the Financial Times, the Guardian, and Huffington Post.

Speaker(s): Nick Robins (UNEP), Dr. Ulrich Volz (SOAS)

Event Date:

1 February 2017

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