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Cambridge Economics Faculty Economics Cambridge Cambridge Faculty of Economics Alumni Newsletter Welcome from Andrew Harvey Meet Alan Beattie: his is the third Alumni newsletter. Having successfully presided over the fi rst two issues, Willy Brown has Dateline Washington DC moved on to higher things. In particular, he is now Chair of the School of the Humanities and Social hree days into his new posting as the Financial Times’ Sciences. International Economy Editor, Alan Beattie (Jesus 1994) is T Tsavouring both his dinner and being back in Washington. He is looking forward to being based in the American capital “until the I have taken over Willy´s role. I was Chair of the Faculty of Economics global economy has recovered” – a period he thinks will be at least from 2004 to 2007. In retrospect this seems like a period of relative two years. calm, though it did not always appear so at the time. Last year Willy wrote that budgets will come under ´severe pressure´. This now Like Rome two thousand years seems like an understatement as the full consequences of the cuts ago, Washington remains the focus in government expenditure begin to make themselves felt in the of international policy analysis, education sector. Cambridge will not escape and there will be even debate and critical comment, even more emphasis on raising money from teaching and research. The as political and economic activity Faculty responded last year by changing the structure of the MPhil so shifts relentlessly eastward. Alan’s as to cater for two groups, one wishing to continue on to a PhD and interests, responsibilities and the other wanting to obtain a Master’s qualifi cation. Numbers in the reporting will cover the international September intake will increase, but not to such an extent that the institutions and organisations that Cambridge experience is replaced by a production line. In 2012 we are located in Washington, or meet will be embarking on a new MPhil in Finance and Economics. This is there regularly – in particular the IMF, an exciting project but the Faculty will need to devote resources to it World Bank and the G20 group of to ensure that a high quality programme is delivered. Alan Beattie developed and emerging nations – as well as North American issues. He The current issue of the newsletter contains articles from some very is already well trained in the political distinguished alumni. In particular we have a piece from Ken Arrow, and media ways inside the Beltway, having previously served a spell in who was a visitor here for the year 1963-64. We also have Bill the FT’s Washington bureau. Janeway´s take on the fi nancial crisis. Other alumni may see things from a different perspective, and we´d be delighted to have your Alan was the paper’s World Trade Editor, based in London, before thoughts on how it all happened and where we go from here. Of moving to the US. His career as a journalist with the FT, which he course, reminiscences of Cambridge’s past are always welcome. joined in 1998, followed two years at the Bank of England, where he worked fi rst on the quarterly Infl ation Report (“perfect training Finally, please don´t forget our Alumni Weekend event on 24 for the FT”) and then on structural market analysis, specialising on September. Meet up with old friends and – this is a must if you labour markets. He sees the need to understand employment and haven´t seen it before – experience the Phillips machine in action. productivity as crucial to all empirical economic analysis, whether macro or micro. That perspective was nurtured, particularly by Professor Willy Brown, during Alan’s time in the Cambridge Economics Faculty. Alan took the MPhil in Economics after having fi rst gained the Diploma. His year was the last to be taught the MPhil in its largely unreconstructed Keynesian form – an experience he values a lot, given his subsequent work and interests. He has benefi ted, he says, from the breadth of the course’s coverage and its empirical relevance. With that in mind, he is encouraged to hear about the new twin-track format for the MPhil in 2010-11 – Economics and Economic Research – which will offer pathways for those wanting a sound grounding in Economics, and those intending to go on to specialist doctoral work. Alan came to Cambridge from Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Andrew Harvey History, a discipline that develops narrative skills vital for Continued overleaf Issue number 3 Autumn 2010 Continued from page 1 Economics commentators in explaining clearly current issues as well Sir Richard Stone Annual Lecture as formulating rigorous and complex economic analysis. The sharpest contrast he notes between History and Economics – at least when he he second in the series of the Centre for Research in was closely involved with both academic subjects – is that historians, Microeconomics (CReMic) Sir Richard Stone Annual Lectures at while engaging in lively disputes, are less liable than economists Tthe University of Cambridge was held recently in the Bateman to regard opposing points of view as not just wrong, but actually Auditorium at Gonville and Caius College. The Lecture provides an illegitimate and unworthy of being taught. opportunity for a leading scholar to present and discuss issues of particular current research interest. The Lecture also honours Sir In his latest book, False Economy: A Surprising Economic History of Richard Stone, the founding Director of the Department of Applied the World, (Viking, 2009), Alan’s insight, incisive analysis and fl uent Economics at the University of Cambridge. narrative are brought to bear on key global economic issues, including international and urban development, trade and supply chains, The second Lecture was entitled ‘Natural Forecasting, Asset natural resources, religion and corruption. He takes issue with the Pricing, and Macroeconomic Dynamics’ and was presented by doctrine of economic determinism as an explanation of why countries David Laibson, Harvard College Professor and Robert I Goldman, and regions differ in their patterns of growth and development. As Professor of Economics at Harvard University. His lecture described a he shows, the reason lies rather in the choices (wise and foolish) that behavioural microfoundation for macro-economic dynamics based societies and communities make, conditioned by their history. on a non-rational form of expectation formation. This specifi cation forms growth expectations as a weighted sum of the rational He fi nds that, in general, countries which encourage markets and expectation and an extrapolation from growth in the previous period allow them to fl ourish do better in boosting economic growth and named a “natural forecast”. Setting the weight at zero and unity welfare than those which do not. However, the effectiveness of the covers a pure rational expectation formation and a purely natural market mechanism is often impaired by governments’ inappropriate forecast respectively. In contrast to a model based on pure rational interventions and the infl uence of privileged pressure groups. An expectations, incorporation of the expectation mechanism into a intriguing example is the way the unregulated global market simple macroeconomic model with a choice of model parameters reallocates scarce water resources via trade in agricultural products by calibration is able to account quite successfully for many of the that have different intensities of water absorption as they are grown. sample autocorrelations found in the data, including the recent Hence, regions that are well endowed with water can trade heavy turbulent period. water-using products (corn and beef) in exchange for less water- dependent ones (vegetables and herbs) from more arid regions. But The Lecture for the academic year 2010-11 will be presented by ill-judged food self-suffi ciency programmes, often coupled with Professor Angus Deaton of Princeton University. For more information, powerful farming lobby groups, severely limit this vital process of see www.econ.cam.ac.uk/cremic/news/stone.html. redistributing “embedded” or “virtual” water. Richard Smith One chapter on path dependency – representing policy inertia – uses the dead-end evolution of the panda as a metaphor for why failing states are unable to adapt successfully to changed circumstances. Alan poses the question: “Why are pandas so useless?” This is an outrage to someone fresh from visiting Washington’s National Zoo, where a family of Chinese pandas is in residence. But yes, pandas do spend most of their time sitting around eating inappropriate food and depending on public subsidies to keep them going. Just wait until Alan starts on academics. It seems that commentary and analysis will continue to beckon after Alan’s current spell in Washington has come to an end. Unlike some other distinguished FT writers before him – Nigel Lawson, Ed Balls and Andrew Adonis come to mind – he has no plans to go into politics. Alan says he had more than enough of that in his student days – at Oxford, of course. Tony Cockerill David Laibson Economic History Prize Dr Danielle van den Heuvel won the International Economic History Association’s PhD Dissertation Prize (pre-1800 category) for her thesis ‘Women and Entrepreneurship: Female Traders in the Northern Netherlands circa 1580-1815’ (Aksant Academic Publishers, 2007). Dr van den Heuvel was appointed Ottilie Hancock Research Fellow in Modern History at Girton in 2008. Her research interests are primarily in the economic development of early modern Europe. Family of Richard Stone, faculty and students at the Stone Lecture 2 understanding the dynamics of decision-making under uncertainty. A rigorous re-invention of Keynes’ (not “Keynesian”) economics can be discerned. Yet, at the level of practice, there is an embryonic consensus that seems determined to snatch defeat from victory. In the winter of 2008-9, pragmatics trumped dogmatics, when for the fi rst time ever, the governments of the world, from Beijing to Washington, mobilised state credit to offset the collapse in private sector borrowing and spending.
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