David Cameron’s special advisory committee of ten on economic strategy includes five business graduates, five knights of the realm, three retailers, three asset strippers, two accountants, a banker, a lord, an advertising exec, a publishing exec, and Sir James Dyson. Only the last named has a background in manufacturing and is likely to have got his hands dirty at work.
All posts by Gordon Pearson
Basel’s New Banking Game Rules
The new rules on bank liquidity, now agreed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, will contribute to reducing banks’ risk-taking. But not a lot, and only slowly. Under pressure from the banks themselves, the rules have been softened and their implementation slowed down. Timidity in tightening requirements is justified on the grounds that too fierce and too rapid rebuilding of bank balance sheets would take too much out of the real economy and so contribute to the much feared double dip recession. But beware!
Dogma has had its day
The forthcoming Oslo conference of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and International Labour Organisation (ILO) is to discuss ways of dealing with unemployment arising from the 2007-8 credit crunch. As noted elsewhere on this site, the question is one of emphasis between, on the one hand, repaying the public indebtedness which was rashly incurred as a result of private greed, and on the other hand, the protection and regeneration of employment, particularly for the most vulnerable.
The Alternative to Friedman’s Ideology
The Hayek / Mises argument that any small step to the left leads inevitably to full on totalitarian socialism, might have had something going for it when the world was beset by Hitler, Stalin, and the fascist governments of Spain, Portugal and Southern America. And later, when national-socialism and fascism had become history, but communism seemed to be prospering under leadership from the Chinese as well as the Soviets, fear of centrally planned totalitarian socialism was not wholly unreasonable. But since the collapse of communism, there seems to be a rather limited rationale for fearing any initiative which might betoken even the slightest move to the left. Centrally planned totalitarian government really is not inevitable, or even feasible.
The Institutional Truth of Transaction Costs
Since Adam Smith’s example of the pin factory, economists have never been able to produce a satisfactory theory of the industrial firm. They’ve thought of it as a black box, expressed it as a production function involving such illuminating variables as price and quantity, and they’ve reduced it to the agency relationship falsely claiming managers to be the agents of shareholders (see other postings on this site). This inadequacy may be part of the reason why, despite Adam Smith, mainstream economists give markets pride of place over the firm.
Belief in the extreme power of market forces, so long as they were free from regulation or any other form of interference, led to the curious belief that the market could produce any item at some cost: the costs of transactions in the market. Only if a firm could produce cheaper than the cost of market transactions, would the firm be justified in production. This fertile thread of economic theory, originated in an article by Coase in 1937, but was developed in the 1960s by a group led by Williamson – last year’s joint Nobel laureate. It challenged the legitimacy of managerial decision makers, arguing the power of market forces to decide.
Continue reading The Institutional Truth of Transaction Costs
The Utility of Economics
The problem with economics is that it sometimes gives the impression of being practically useful. As an academic subject its great virtue is in training the mind, a component of what Newman referred to as a liberal education, in the same way as latin used to be. For some time the mind training role of latin appeared to be being taken over by computer programming. That had the same hard, rule-based logic, and for most people who, three decades ago or more, learned Fortran or C and their various derivatives, there was the same lack of practical utility. Now, that role has been usurped by the study of economics.
Breaking up the Banks
The little UK bank reporting season is over. £15Bn profits have been reported. Bonuses are being calculated. The time they took us all over the brink is becoming a distant memory, along with the ‘too big to fail’ mantra. Sir John Vickers’ commission on banking regulation won’t report for another twelve months and by then the boot will be firmly on the other foot. Government will need the bank’s profits to push share prices up so the public holdings can be disposed of at a profit, or at least at not too big a loss. It will be business as usual, at least till the next time.
CBI's faux call for tougher takeover rules
Almost every empirical study of the value of takeovers indicates that overall there is no gain; the acquirer doesn’t benefit and the overall economy usually loses out. The only ones who gain are the shareholders of the acquired company, and in cases like the Tomkins sell out currently going through, its top management whose pay off is really nothing more or less than a bribe. This is in contrast with ordinary employees who usually face an immediate cull as well as a long term loss.
BP, the BBC and Agency Theory Again
Nowhere in British or United States law are directors (and/or managers) of the incorporated limited liability company, claimed to be the agents of shareholders. The principal, for which directors act as agent, is the company itself. And as agents of the company, directors have a legal duty to act in its best interests at all times. But the business, academic and media worlds have bought the theoretical economists’ lie that company directors are the agents of shareholders and must act in their interests, which are interpreted as solely short term financial, even if it means selling the company down the river.
Paradoxes of Free Market Ownership
The hero of the free market philosophy is surely the entrepreneur, the one who has the entrepreneurial spirit to start from small beginnings and build something not only with their own sweat, blood and creativity, but also by putting their own money at risk. They control and own. Most of them fail but a few succeed and go on to greater things, giving employment to large numbers and addressing some want or need in a uniquely satisfying way which assures their success. That is the free market hero; and socialism’s arch villain.
Fighting for Fairness by Remaking the Real Economy 