Cambridge Judge Business School Discussions on Economics & Policy

Academics from Cambridge Judge Business School have raised doubts about whether the size and speed of George Osborne's cuts will dampen the country's economic recovery and whether volunteers under the banner of working in a "Big Society" can really take on jobs previously performed by public sector workers. Boni Sones OBE reports.

Ken Warwick believes the prospects are good as long as we rebalance the economy.

It's a case of not "if" but "when". Crises and cycles, says Professor Lord Desai, are recurring events, every solution inevitably creates its own problems.

Author, economist and political analyst Loretta Napoleoni has been tracing the intertwined roots of the world's monetary systems and the business of terrorism

As 2008, a year that shook the world and began the restructuring of the global economies, draws to a close, we take a look at the year ahead. Which economies are likely to find it easiest to ride out the current recession and what management tools and skills should opinion formers and business leaders draw on to ensure they provide the right climate for firms to do well? Strangely, not all the news is bad news, as we have been finding out in the Window on the World series of interviews with academics and associates from Judge Business School.

As 2008, a year that shook the world and began the restructuring of the global economies, draws to a close, we take a look at the year ahead. Which economies are likely to find it easiest to ride out the current recession and what management tools and skills should opinion formers and business leaders draw on to ensure they provide the right climate for firms to do well? Strangely, not all the news is bad news, as we have been finding out in the Window on the World series of interviews with academics and associates from Judge Business School.

Nick Butler, Chairman of the Cambridge Centre for Energy Studies, is formally launching The Keynes Society this Spring, a concept inspired by the urgent need for some new economic thinking at this critical time. It will involve a non partisan group of people from around the world who are interested in economics and in policy. The aim would be to open up discussion rather than to replace one orthodoxy with another and given Keynes' breadth of interests there is no reason to set boundaries on what it will cover - the economics of science, climate change, higher education and the arts could all do with some radical thinking. Nick Butler explains the lessons Keynesian economics has for us today.

The International Labour Organisation has forecast a rise in unemployment by 20 million world-wide, by the end of 2009. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has forecast a loss of up to 10 million jobs within the OECD group of countries, and up to 25 million jobs world-wide between 2008 and 2010. However, would a strategy of cutting wages as opposed to cutting jobs in the face of this recession create the conditions for economic recovery? Dr Paul Kattuman believes it would.

If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences: the maxim of the 'self fulfilling prophecy'. Forecasts that are sufficiently believed, cause people to act in ways that make the prediction come true. Forecasts about the economy can have this self-fulfilling character. Prognostications of popular media commentators on the economy form a large part of the basis of everyone's beliefs about future economic circumstances; if 2009 turns out to be a dreadful year for the economy, to a large extent it will be because people believe it will be. Dr Paul Kattuman explains the phenomenon of the way media forms beliefs and the role it is playing in driving economic behaviour.

Dr Noreena Hertz, Associate Director of CIBAM, on why in an interconnected world an open source form of capitalism is what is required for longer term viability.

Survival of the most adaptable - how the recession can lead to a change for the better: As the global recession sinks into becoming a deepening global depression, and new financial measures such as "quantitative easing" are brought in to try and stabilise markets, Judge Business School's podcast series has been talking to its academics to find out how business can best cope with the changing financial climate it now finds itself in. Boni Sones reports on this positive advice from the experts. The Producer is Aislinn Ryan.

Survival of the most adaptable - how the recession can lead to a change for the better: As the global recession sinks into becoming a deepening global depression, and new financial measures such as "quantitative easing" are brought in to try and stabilise markets, Judge Business School's podcast series has been talking to its academics to find out how business can best cope with the changing financial climate it now finds itself in. Boni Sones reports on this positive advice from the experts. The Producer is Aislinn Ryan.

Senator Yves Leterme, Former Prime Minister of Belgium, compares the Anglo-Saxon and the Rhineland models of socio-economic development. The current economic crisis, he believes, stems from an overpurification of neo-liberalism, which saw many economies move from over-regulation, to de-regulation, to self-regulation to non-regulation. The cure? A blending of the best of the Anglo-Saxon and Rhineland systems. Senator Leterme explains how.

According to Michael Kitson, the recession will be deeply protracted and U-shaped, leaving permanent scars on the economy in the form of lost economic capacity. The financial sector will not fully recover to be as significant a share of the economy as it was pre-shock; the adverse effect on long-term investment will reduce productive capacity in the future and the country will not be allowed to draw in as much import as previously. The challenge, he explains, will be to produce strategies to replace this lost capacity.

It all began with the collapse of the sub-prime housing market in America, and the rest, as they say, is now history. The 2008 and 2009 recession saw consumption fall for the first time in 20 years, and that slow-down in America spread to countries as far apart as the UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Canada, Japan, China, India and New Zealand. However, while some were officially in recession having experienced two consecutive quarters of negative growth, others such as India and China avoided it. Australia even managed positive growth. All year experts at Cambridge Judge Business School have been offering advice to those affected by the "slump". Here Boni Sones reviews what they said.

It all began with the collapse of the sub-prime housing market in America, and the rest, as they say, is now history. The 2008 and 2009 recession saw consumption fall for the first time in 20 years, and that slow-down in America spread to countries as far apart as the UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Canada, Japan, China, India and New Zealand. However, while some were officially in recession having experienced two consecutive quarters of negative growth, others such as India and China avoided it. Australia even managed positive growth. All year experts at Cambridge Judge Business School have been offering advice to those affected by the "slump". Here Boni Sones reviews what they said.

Michael Kitson warns we need to develop industries with long term potential for growth.

Robert Prechter offers a new explanation of why markets perform as they do.

Crisis, what crisis? Greece is not alone when it comes to debts and the Eurozone says Dr Christos Pitelis.

Member of The Council for Science and Technology Professor Alan Hughes explains why despite anticipated cuts in scientific funding, the future for science research in the UK has an excellent outlook