Philippe Legrain

Spain and Germany both subsidise coal mining as well as solar energy. Schizophrenia?

Why do governments make it so difficult for people to migrate temporarily? Most don’t want to move permanently, yet in practice they are forced to choose between staying or leaving for good, as this article by a Nigerian health worker in the UK highlights

Please can we kill, once and for all, the lie that Barclays survived without government aid. It benefited from government guarantees, the bailout of its counterparties and deposit insurance.

1. No wonder France is deporting the Roma. How could a country of 60 million people possibly cope with 15,000 Roma migrants? Interesting article in the New York Times on how the Roma are testing the EU’s open borders policy. 2. Vince Cable says the UK government’s immigration cap is costing jobs and harming the [...]

Highlights: Oh! No! Not another book about the global financial crisis. But Aftershock (ambitiously subtitled ‘Reshaping the world economy after the crisis’) is one of the best. Philippe Legrain is that rare combination of a fine journalist with a decent grasp of economics, or perhaps that should be a first class economist who can actually write. [...]

In this week’s FT, Gideon Rachman argued that “maybe it is time for an alternative to the brash certainties, peddled by those pseudo-scientists, otherwise known as economists.” Tim Harford then hit back with a defence of economics, and Diane Coyle has also joined the fray. I know, like and respect all three of them, and [...]

I debated globalisation and protectionism on BBC Radio 4′s Today programme this morning.

Ode, July/August 2010. How consumer spending can help create a fairer, richer, greener and more stable global economy.

An article extracted from Aftershock in the new Ode magazine.