David Blanchflower



Profile:
Full name: David Blanchflower

Area of interest: Business, economic and financial affairs

Journals/Organisation: The Independent | New Statesman

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Personal website: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~blnchflr/

Website: http://www.independent.co.uk/biography/david-blanchflower | http://www.newstatesman.com/writers/david_blanchflower

Blog: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-blanchflower

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Networks: https://twitter.com/D_Blanchflower



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Current position/role: Economics editor at New Statesman; Business columnist at The Independent


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The Independent:
Column name: Economic Outlook

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Section: Business

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Website: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/

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Day published: Monday

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Articles: 2014

 * Like the NFL, the Monetary Policy Committee is recruiting players who could sink or swim - New recruits on the MPC have been put on the spot by the Governor’s warning on rates - 23rd June
 * Surprise, surprise: real wages have gone nowhere. People should have listened to the real experts - Britain’s labour market is highly flexible – employment has risen but average real wages have fallen - 16th June
 * The ECB brandishes a feather duster instead of a bazooka as it goes into battle for the euro - The ECB is at least consistent in always putting off until tomorrow what it should have done yesterday - 9th June
 * The waning power of the trade unions has been an important driver behind rising wealth inequality - Piketty’s full response to the Financial Times supports the view that inequality has been rising - 2nd June
 * Should we trust forecasts of a return to real wage growth? The figures don't support such optimism - Look out for lots of excuses from George Osborne when a large negative number appears next month - 28th May
 * Unemployment will scar us for years - The figures make it look as if unemployment is going down, but they hide a multitude of sins and as usual it is the poorest that suffer the most - 12th May
 * Garbage in, garbage out: our jobs figures are not working any more - It is very hard to work out what is going on in the UK labour market because the quality of the statistics is basically junk – garbage in, garbage out describes the lack of quality of the data well. I really am not exaggerating - 7th May
 * Why Janet Yellen and the Federal Reserve should make workers’ wage growth into a target - Wage inflation should be used as an additional target for monetary policy by the US central bank - 28th April
 * Victory lap? George Osborne’s handling of the economy has resulted in an ignominious defeat for the Chancellor - The International Monetary Fund in its World Economic Outlook has now upgraded its forecast for UK growth in 2014 - 14th April
 * George Osborne’s target of full employment looks a tall order. He needs to clarify what his target means - Does the Chancellor want lots of eighty-year-olds in employment? And if so why? - 7th April
 * Why would we want to leave a European club where many members are better off than we are? - The evidence contradicts Farage's claim that everything about the EU is bad - 31st March
 * Ignore George Osborne’s hollow boasting – thankfully, better things are happening at the Bank of England - How will retired folk behave with more control over their finances? George Osborne has given no analysis - 24th March
 * Bankers don’t deserve their bonuses. They should be taxed and the money used to help our struggling young people - This isn’t about trashing the economy, it’s about making it more competitive so it works for everyone - 16th March
 * The evidence is clear: the Home Secretary and the Conservatives talk nonsense on immigration - There appears to be little association between non-EU immigration and employment - 10th March
 * David Cameron wasted money on his well-being programme – we already know what makes us happy - Research in happiness economics now increasingly looks like medicine, where policy impacts are measured - 3rd March
 * The North is still not feeling this recovery – and the Conservatives are likely to pay for that at the polls - There has been little pick-up recently in house price to earnings ratios - 24th February
 * he Bank of England is wrong to assume that falling unemployment signals rising wages - Over the past six years the Federal Reserve set policy and six months or so later the MPC followed - 17th February
 * Despite what the Government says, people are not better off. And the self-employed are likely to be suffering more than most - More self-employed report that they do not have adequate work and want more hours - 10th February
 * Emerging-market chaos and the Federal Reserve taper mean this might be as good as it gets for Britain’s economy - The mud hit the fan in a number of countries last week - 3rd February
 * Behind good news headlines on recovery and jobs we are no better off than at the start of this slump - Recession will have lasted three years longer than any other in the past 100 years - 27th January
 * Are workers’ wages really likely to begin growing again any time soon? - The Office for Budget Responsibility looks to be overly optimistic once again - 20th January
 * The plight of the young and unemployed is truly scary – and this government seems to have no answers - A quarter of long-term unemployed young people have self harmed - 13th January
 * My big mistake of 2013? I didn’t spot the pick-up in consumer confidence. Yet Osborne is not vindicated - I should have realised that this burst in sentiment predicted a burst of growth - 6th January



Articles: 2013

 * Crisis? What crisis? Just ask the ever-growing numbers of UK and overseas nationals being forced to sleep rough - I thought Thatcher’s cardboard box city of rough sleepers outside Waterloo station had gone forever - 30th December 2013
 * The workforce is rising in some countries and falling in others. Why? Economists are puzzled … - These inactive folks stand ready to return to the labour force if jobs become available - 23rd December 2013
 * George Osborne has failed the very tests he set himself in 2010 – and we are poorer as a result - GDP per capita is lower than it was when the Coalition was formed - 16th December 2013
 * Take if from me: wages are not going to rise much over the coming years - The Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts are way too optimistic - 9th December 2013
 * Message to forecasters: Don’t assume that the future will turn out like the past - In no previous election has there been falling real wages and public sector job cuts - 2nd December 2013
 * The Coalition has failed the young - but a tax cut from George Osborne could help - These are likely to be the lost generation. Long spells without work leave scars - 25th November 2013
 * David Cameron has shown his hand – austerity is really all about shrinking the size of the state - Gone are the days of hug-a-hoody compassionate conservatism populism - 18th November 2013
 * The economy is desperately in need of more productive young immigrants - A demographic timebomb is threatening influx of Eastern European workers to the UK - 11th November 2013
 * Britain has exorcised the inflationary demons of our past - Economic outlook: Globalisation has reduced workers’ bargaining power around the world - 4th November 2013
 * Forget Osborne’s ‘path to prosperity’ – we shouldn’t get too excited about this growth - A quarter of the growth under the Coalition is down to Labour’s Olympics investment - 28th October 2013
 * The PM’s been fibbing and the Coalition’s labour market policies are ruled by prejudice - Forget the evidence, ministers know the answer that will buy them votes - 21st October 2013
 * George Osborne is now in the business of buying votes - I had always assumed the Chancellor of the Exchequer cared about politics above economics. And so it has turned out - 14th October 2013
 * Why Osborne’s crackpot jobs policy will not work - Denying housing benefit to youngsters will push them back home with their parents - 7th October 2013
 * Americans sneeze and Brits catch the flu: A US shut down poses risks to the UK economy - British workers are still hurting thanks to this careless coalition - 30th September 2013
 * Bernanke told on tapering but the hawks didn’t listen - It made sense to wait and see because of the impending change in the chairmanship - 23rd September 2013
 * The economy is turning a corner? No, Osborne is just taking us all for a ride - In the labour market evidence suggests many, or even most, are being left behind - 16th September 2013
 * What will drive growth? This recovery could turn out to be a flash in the pan - It is now 66 months since the start of the recession and GDP is still 2.9 per cent down - 9th September 2013
 * House prices are booming again but the bust that’s bound to follow will cost us dear - A rise in rates would inevitably cause an immediate and deep house price crash - 2nd September 2013
 * This pick-up owes diddly squat to Osborne’s austerity - No ifs or buts: the Chancellor’s policies have failed catastrophically - 25th August 2013
 * There has been no good news for Britain’s army of underemployed workers - The underemployment rate rose more quickly than the unemployment rate in Q1 2013 - 29th July 2013
 * Hold off on the bunting – 0.6 per cent growth does not a recovery make - Osborne is surely putting more pressure on Mark Carney to do more QE and soon - 26th July 2013
 * The Bank of England should beware: forward guidance without policy action is useless - Full employment in the UK is a long way off and the labour market is weakening again - 22nd July 2013
 * Bernanke is right to dash the expectation that ‘tapering’ is going to happen any time soon - The US economy isn't out of the woods yet, as a look at the labour market shows - 15th July 2013
 * Osborne’s assertion that high debt slows growth has been wrong from the start - The volatility caused by discussing withdrawing monetary stimulus has made it more likely for it to be increased in the UK - 8th July 2013
 * These GDP figures show the Bank of England didn’t know what it was doing - A monkey throwing darts at a dartboard could hardly have done worse - 30th June
 * Increasing deficit cuts right through the Chancellor’s spin on Britain’s economy - Our downgraded Chancellor claimed the economy is growing, which is a bit rich - 24th June 2013
 * This rockonomics world in which we live is unfair and ultimately bad for growth - The top 5 per cent of artists take home almost 90 per cent of all concert revenues - 17th June 2013
 * If he wants to turn around the Bank of England supertanker, Mark Carney has a major task ahead - Given that monetary policy decisions take around two years to have any effect on the real economy, expectations are unreasonably high for the new govenor - 10th June 2013
 * Foresight should not be elusive when the future is staring you in the face - If I could see the recession coming, why couldn't Sir Mervyn King? - 5th June 2013
 * The Swedish shock wave is a lesson. We could have unrest here without action on jobs - The evidence from behavioural economics is that people compare themselves to others - 3rd June 2013
 * No wonder George Osborne didn’t stick around to hear the IMF’s verdict on his policies - They said the UK is still a long way from a strong and sustainable recovery - 27th May 2013
 * Austerity’s foundations have crumbled – and advocates have blood on their hands - Political mismanagement of financial crises has resulted in a grim array of human tragedies, from suicides to HIV infections to West Nile Virus - 20th May 2013
 * Be warned George Osborne: more home owners just really means higher unemployment - An increase in people acquiring property cuts labour mobility and the number of new firms - 13th May 2013
 * Underemployment is inflicting huge pain on the British economy: we need to do more - In aggregate, workers would like to work about 20m more hours per week - 6th May 2013
 * The GDP growth is good news on the economy, but let's not get carried away - This 0.3 per cent growth is hardly evidence of "healing" as the Chancellor has claimed. The best that can be said is the economy is still flatlining - 29th April 2013
 * Osborne should choose his guides more carefully - “He told us bad stuff would happen once debt reached 90 per cent of GDP” - 22nd April 2013
 * Worrying truth is the labour market may be slowing - There is no evidence to support the claim that the Coalition has created more jobs in three years than Labour managed in ten. Quite the reverse, in fact - 15th April 2013
 * Japan has finally joined the quantitative easing party - and better late than never - Central bank watchers in search of excitement must turn to Japan. The hope is that this dramatic action will break the two-decade deflationary spiral - 8th April 2013
 * George Osborne called us deficit deniers, but we were right. His economic era is over - Osborne believed in a world of fantasy economics that had no foundation in fact and was bound to fail, with devastating and cruel consequences for ordinary people - 4th April 2013
 * Forget inflation – what hurts the most is unemployment - Osborne should have set a target for unemployment as the Fed has - 2nd April 2013
 * Osborne isn't going to get the growth he needs - Look past the spin and there isn't much in the Budget to be hopeful about - 24th March 2013
 * Budget 2013: Osborne, a part-time Chancellor, is just fiddling on the edges of the economy - The new Employment Allowance is a good idea, but most other proposals are either inconsequential or likely to be ineffective. And the overall picture is still grim - 22nd March 2013
 * Liam Fox is the last person Osborne should heed - Fox wants to take from the poor and give to the rich – it’s class war - 18th March 2013
 * The Prime Minister speech on the economy asserted the incredible in defense of the indefensible - The insistent repetition of such demonstrably false statements is at best self-delusion - and that delusion is damaging to the entire UK economy - 11th March 2013
 * Chancellor plays a losing game, but Ed’s dead right - George Osborne took a risk by cutting public spending - and he lost. Now he seems to have no idea how to respond, leaving all the cards in the hands of his opposite number - 4th March 2013
 * This is an AAA disaster created by George Osborne - The Chancellor's incompetence is clear from the employment figures. Despite all the Coalition's claims to the contrary, young people in particular are suffering needlessly - 25th February 2013
 * MPC’s downgrade shows it is too early to raise rates - Latest forecasts are likely optimistic, given the euro area’s downside risks - 18th February 2013
 * Mark 'Capable' Carney gets off to an assured start - The big news is that Mr Carney didn’t actually say that much, but I am looking forward to watching the new broom start sweeping - 11th February 2013
 * Here’s a way to end our slump: give away money - Why not give significant tax cuts to the low end of the income distribution rather than the top end? - 4th February 2013
 * George Osborne is destined to be remembered as the most inept Chancellor in British history - Endless grim news confirms our worst fears about the man running the Treasury. And until workers see a growth in their real earnings, our economy is going nowhere fast - 28th January 2013
 * Given the state of Britain's economy, Capable (Mark) Carney needs to work miracles - There are huge expectations of the new Bank of England Governor, and he won't be able to live up to them. But he could start by learning from the Federal Reserve - 21st January 2013
 * The jobless are lazy? That's just a vile lie - Even the low-paid are happier and less anxious than the unemployed - 14th January 2013
 * The US sneezes and the UK still gets a cold - So let's hope the debt ceiling and spending cut negotiations are resolved swiftly and without mishap - 7th January 2013



Articles: 2012

 * The myth of over-paid public sector workers - Pay in the public sector is lower than in the private sector once education gaps are factored in - 18th December 2012
 * The Bullingdon Chancellor: why George Osborne is a very uncivil, as well as useless, Chancellor - With pathetic economic growth, the least Osborne and Cameron could do is abandon the rudeness of their drinking society at Oxford. Instead, they want to champion it - 10th December 2012
 * The part-time Chancellor with his head in the sand: why Osborne should be held to account for slashing public spending and talking down the economy - Not healing but shrinking, we are on the wrong track because of failed policies - 6th December 2012
 * Ideology rules the Coalition's jobs policies - Economic Outlook: They introduced the labour market equivalent of thalidomide - 3rd December 2012
 * David Cameron's economic gibberish - The PM’s speech to the CBI was an insult to the intelligence of his audience - 26th November 2012
 * Why isn't the Bank more transparent? - Economic Outlook: A big concern is that the Bank provides little detail of its forecasts, and no information at all on its new Compass model - 19th November 2012
 * Tyrant King held the Bank in thrall - but they all got it wrong - Economic Outlook: You were either an insider on Sir Mervyn’s good side or you were out - 5th November 2012
 * Cameron's employment claims just don't add up - He insists one million jobs have been created; they haven’t - 29th October 2012
 * Surprise, surprise: we're less happy under the Coalition - Individuals have a lower tendency to report themselves as happy as inequality rises - 21st October 2012
 * Job creation? The numbers don't add up - They should be ashamed of themselves for trying to mislead the public - 15th October 2012
 * Facts lost in political wrangling over US jobs - The publication of the US jobs numbers caused a firestorm of protest from the right wing - 8th October 2012
 * I suspect that the list of those who want to do it is going to be very short - The advert for the next Governor of the Bank of England is unlikely to be a game changer. It seems rather unlikely that there is some secret candidate out there that nobody knows about who would see the advert and think "that's the job for me" - 5th October 2012
 * Bank needs governor with experience of how markets work - I read I was a candidate for the Monetary Policy Committee in a national newspaper - 1st October 2012
 * Poor are written off by Romney and Osborne - The next round of spending cuts is about to come. Who is watching out for the meek and mild? - 24th September 2012
 * Unravelling puzzle of jobless 'fall' that isn't - What is good for the American people appears not to be good for Romney - 17th September 2012
 * Why George Osborne's support has drained away - The booing that Slasher received at the Paralympics shouldn’t surprise anyone. The fact is his failing policies are causing millions to suffer needlessly - 10th September 2012
 * Paul Ryan's plan... Make Mitt Romney richer - I find it hard to understand why the middle class would vote for something against their interests - 3rd September 2012
 * Hawks are wrong - QE works and we need it - The last thing our economies need is to worsen the situation for borrowers in order to help savers - 28th August 2012
 * Osborne's 'consensus' has come crashing down - The consensus now seems to be that the Chancellor’s policies have resulted in failure - 20th August 2012
 * The MPC didn't have a clue and still doesn't - They expected the depth of the recession to be revised upwards - 13th August 2012
 * How bad must it get before Slasher Osborne is sacked? - I question whether these new self-employed jobs, especially part-time ones, are good jobs - 6th August 2012
 * Let's call up Vince to get us out of this mess - The sack is a powerful weapon our dithering prime minister seems unable to wield - 30th July 2012
 * Has Treasury realised at last it's time to act? - The IMF report "explodes what is left of the credibility of the analysis behind fiscal strategy" - 23rd July 2012
 * Our fragile economy still has further to fall - It seems unlikely any announcement will have any effect on the economy much before 2015 - 16th July 2012
 * What took central banks so long to do more stimulus? - Why didn't they lower rates in February given there was no risk of inflation? - 9th July 2012
 * Yet more nails in Osborne's economic coffin - The Coalition bet the 2015 election on their economic policy working... all else was secondary - 2nd July 2012
 * Wages slide shows Bank must act strongly and quickly - The MPC should be easing policy right away given that the risks to inflation are so markedly on the downside - 25th June 2012
 * The new lending schemes are good but not enough - The Greek crisis has spread to Spain; Italy has moved into the crosshairs along with Cyprus - 18th June 2012
 * With central banks so passive, there's plenty of reasons to be bearish - Inflation is set to fall sharply, especially given the rapid decline in the oil price - 11th June 2012
 * Coming soon... the biggest U-turn yet as Osborne abandons austerity - The question is not if but when Mr Osborne will put more stimulusinto the economy - 5th June 2012
 * How much worse do things have to get before we get action? - Why not start temporary tax cuts and shovel ready projects right now? - 28th May 2012
 * Have the policymakers at the Bank of England gone completely nuts? - Targeting inflation hasn't delivered the promised economic stability, far from it. It is now time for a change - 21st May 2012
 * The recessiondeniers have gone strangely quiet this month - We are in the slowest recovery for a century, with no end in sight - 14th May 2012
 * Sir Mervyn missed the big one despite plenty of wake-up calls - King didn't need divine intervention, he should have looked at the data - 8th May 2012
 * The Bank needs a governor who grasps the real world - The economists failed. It is time for the practitioners to take over - 23rd April 2012
 * Slasher Osborne's in deep trouble – as new growth gloom is about to show - Government cuts are set to become an even bigger drag on growth - 16th April 2012
 * Sorry, the economic picture is not going to look any better - Some commentators have argued that the poor GDP data shouldn't be - 3rd April 2012
 * Ben Bernanke's history lesson: doing too little is worse than too much - Policy inaction in 1928 and 1929 and premature tightening were major errors - 26th March 2012
 * The Big Society? It's simply cover for a Tory attack on the state - The poor, the weak, the young, women and the unemployed are on their own in Cameron's version of the Poor Laws - 19th March 2012
 * The Bank of England gets it wrong yet again - For the umpteenth time the Bank is forecasting rapid recovery - 20th February 2012



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