John Kay

On the 31st January, the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) interviewed John to discuss the current state of economics. John suggests that economics has focused too much on axiomatic and deductive reasoning and has been constrained by the simplifying assumptions that such an agenda imposes. The first part of the interview is here. To watch the rest, you can visit their website.

On the 24th January, John appeared in front of the Public Administration Committee to give his views on strategic thinking in government. Watch full coverage here.

On the 7th February John will be speaking at an Intelligence Squared event, entitled ‘What hope for the economy?’ Evan Davies will be grilling a distinguished panel of economists, journalists and business leaders, as well as taking questions from expert witnesses in the audience. The event will be held at the Royal Geographical Society, starting at 6.45pm and finishing at 8.30pm. To buy tickets, click here.

Listen to John on the today programme discussing what politicians can offer an electorate used to rising prosperity, alongside Jim Tomlinson, professor of history at Dundee University, and Ben Page of Ipsos Mori.

Following on from John’s paper, The Map Is Not the Territory: An Essay on the State of Economics, Giovanni Dosi, Professor of Economics at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa,  offers his response entitled, Elements of an Evolutionary Paradigm, in which he contends that the current economic paradigm – at its core the notions of equilibrium, utility maximization, and stable preferences – needs to be replaced by an alternative evolutionary paradigm.

On the 24th September John gave an after dinner speech as part of the Center on Capitalism and Society’s 9th Annual Conference entitled,  ’Philosophical Foundations of Economics and the Good Economy: Individual Values, Human Pursuits, Self-Realization and Becoming’. Other speakers included Martin Seligman, Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz. Watch John’s speech here.

As the eurozone crisis deepens and political leaders flail in the face of the huge debts that have left financial institutions and member states teetering on the brink, it is important to understand how we got here if we are ever to figure a way out. In 2005, well before the financial crisis, when the EU was confidently pursuing expansion, John was contemplating the consequences of increased integration without genuine economic discipline in his article, The right to join Europe’s club is not a reward. A year later, in an incredibly insightful piece,  he considered what would happen if Italy had to leave the euro, in If Italy thinks the unthinkable about the eurozone. In 2006 it was almost unthinkable, now it is a very real possibility.

In his more recent articles on Europe John discusses the fudamental flaw in continually providing resources to enable member states to fight markets in Europe’s elite is fighting reality and will lose. He also asks what we might learn from the US in American lessons in how to run a single currency.

John discusses credit default swaps on the today programme. Listen here.

On the 18th October John gave evidence to the Treasury Committee on the proposals put forward in the Independent Banking Commission’s Final Report. Also in attendance were John Hitchins, PricewaterhouseCoopers, John Grout, Association of Corporate Treasurers, Matthew Fell, CBI and Peter Hahn, Cass Business School. Watch full coverage here.

On October 14th at Merton College, Oxford, Professor Robert Frank gave a talk exploring the potentially illuminating role of Darwin in economic theory. John was asked to give his response, along with biologist, Sunetra Guptra. Watch the event here.