Economic History for Economists: Why? (Nicholas Crafts)

Cambridge Society For Economic Pluralism

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‘The imperfect lessons that we can draw from history… are of inestimable, irreplaceable value, and no controlled experiment will ever be able to equal them. - Thomas Piketty 2014
The recent financial crisis has given rise to a fierce debate over the training that economics students receive, with many key figures arguing that a lack of knowledge of economic history contributing to the mistakes that were made. Andrew Haldane, Chief Economist at the Bank of England, said that, “financial history should have caused us to take credit cycles seriously,” and that it’s disappearance from the curriculum caused complacency. As one of the only economics degrees with a compulsory economic history paper remaining, what does it offer us? How might it help us prevent future crises? And why should we defend it?
Professor Nicholas Crafts is Professor of Economics and Economic History at the University of Warwick. His research interests are the Industrial Revolution, British economic decline and the analysis of growth rates. His book ‘British Economic Growth During the Industrial Revolution’, and his work with Professor Charles Harley, were hugely influential in the field of economic history, and remain a staple of the Cambridge curriculum today.
This lecture was recorded on Monday 30th November at the Mill Lane Lecture site, University of Cambridge.
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Опубликовано:

10 дек 2015

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@nthperson 6 лет назад

If one looks at what is occurring during the build-up to a financial crisis, the causes are to be found in credit-fueled, speculation-driven property (or, more specifically, land) markets. Discussion of land markets requires discussion of the question of "who owns the land" and are land markets competitive or subject to monopolistic forces. This relationship is clearly described, quite remarkedly, by Winston Churchill in the speeches he delivered during his first campaign for a seat in the House of Commons in 1909. Churchill recognized that monopoly privilege will inevitably destroy societal stability. He described the monopoly of land (in Britain) as "the mother of all monopolies. What he was referring to was both the absolute control over land by a small minority of the population as well as the private appropriation of the rent of land. Churchill was at this point a member of the Liberal party, sharing the positions of Lloyd George, Philip Snowden and others on what was referred to from the time of Adam Smith on as "the land question."