Philippe Legrain

In The Times‘ Christmas review of books about money, Oliver Kamm writes: The Times recommends Aftershock: “The crash of 2007-09 did not turn into a reprise of the 1930s mainly because policymakers had learnt from the mistakes of that era. They rescued the banks, slashed interest rates, and injected money into the economy to support [...]

I was interviewed on BBC World News on 25 November 2010 by George Alagiah about the euro-zone crisis and whether Portugal and Spain might be affected next.

I was interviewed by Peter Allen on 5 Live Drive on 23 November, following the government’s announcement of the details of its cap on highly skilled foreign workers. The recording isn’t great and I sound a bit breathless because I was on my mobile phone at the airport, rushing to catch a plane. Listen to [...]

The UK government yesterday announced much tighter restrictions on people from outside the EU who want to come here to work or study. At at time when the government is relying on the private sector to drive the recovery as the public sector is cut back, and when the education sector is a particularly important [...]

“Los casi 100.000 millones que se piden a la eurozona no son una ayuda, sino un préstamo que habrá que devolver con altos tipos de interés. La factura sale a unos 23.000 euros por irlandés: los ciudadanos tendrán que pagar mucho dinero para salvar a sus bancos y por la pésima gestión del Gobierno”, advirtió [...]

Financial Times, 18 November 2010. The government’s fatal mistake was guaranteeing all the banks’ bondholders

This is a slightly longer version of an article that appeared in the FT. Euro-phobes can scarcely contain their joy at the Irish crisis – proof positive, in their eyes, of the folly of the single currency. But while the euro-zone certainly needs reform, the notion that the euro is to blame for Ireland’s travails [...]

I spent a fantastic weekend in Kilkenny, at Kilkenomics, Ireland’s first economics (and comedy) festival. Despite (and because of) the crisis, it was a sell-out. Congrats to Richard Cook and David McWilliams for putting on a superb event, hopefully the first of many. The Irish government now appears to be in talks with the EU [...]

The US and others seem to believe that China’s currency is the biggest obstacle to the global recovery. That is highly debatable, as I argued on VoxEU. In any case, the Chinese renminbi is up 3.1% against the dollar over the past 12 months. And since inflation is 4.4% in China and only 1.1% in [...]

VoxEU, 2 November 2010. While the debate over global imbalances often focuses on China, this column argues that the biggest threat to the world economy comes from the other side of the seesaw – the US.

Check out my new article on VoxEU.org.