David Bell's picture
Affiliation: 
University of Stirling
Credentials: 
Professor of Economics

Voting history

Global risks from rising debt and asset prices

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Question 2: Is the loose monetary policy of major central banks responsible for the recent increase in global leverage or asset values?

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Answer:
Agree
Confidence level:
Confident

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Question 1: Does the world economy face heightened risks arising from an excess of public and private debt and/or inflated asset prices?

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Answer:
Agree
Confidence level:
Confident

Wages and economic recoveries

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Question 2: Do you agree that the different behaviour of UK real wages relative to Eurozone wages during the Great Recession is in large part due to the UK having different labour market policies?

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Answer:
Disagree
Confidence level:
Confident
Comment:
UK certainly has different labour market policies - but not clear why their effects have become so magnified post the Great Recession.

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Question 1: Do you agree that lower real wage growth was beneficial for employment levels during the Great Recession?

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Answer:
Agree
Confidence level:
Not confident
Comment:
Why is the UK such an outlier in relation to the "wage gap"? Different competing explanations - failure to eliminate "zombie" firms post-2008 - surely this applies to other parts of Europe?; weaker labour market institutions - surely applied pre-2008?; substitution of labour for capital - why would this not apply elsewhere?

Happiness and well-being as objectives of macro policy

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Question 2: Do you agree that quantitative well-being analysis should play an important role in guiding policy makers in determining macroeconomic policies?

 
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Answer:
Agree
Confidence level:
Confident
Comment:
I have an interest in this question in that I am a joint author of a paper on the well-being trade-off between inflation and unemployment (see below). We find that unemployment entails higher well-being costs than does inflation. Clearly this has a bearing on macroeconomic policy and we do feel that central bankers should take this kind of evidence into account when making decisions. Blanchflower, D. G., Bell, D. N., Montagnoli, A., & Moro, M. (2014). The Happiness Trade‐Off between Unemployment and Inflation. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 46(S2), 117-141.

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