As Covid-19 hit the world’s leading economies, most economists – in central banks and elsewhere – expected years of disinflation or even falling prices. To counter the supposed risks, policy-makers embarked on expansionary measures which caused money growth to reach remarkably high rates in spring and summer of 2020. In the event inflation soared in the next few quarters. In 2022 it reached the highest levels for 40 years in the USA, Europe, the UK and elsewhere. In this bold new book Cong...

How is the inflation flare-up of the early 2020s to be explained? In this book Tim Congdon, one of the world’s leading monetary analysts and Fellow of the Royal Economic Society, argues that a money growth explosion in spring and summer 2020 was the main cause.The book is scholarly, but also lively and readable. Congdon restates the quantity theory of money, advocating the usefulness of a broadly-defined measure of money which includes all, or nearly all, bank deposits. He applies ...

In the 15 years to mid-2007 the world economy enjoyed unparalleled stability (the so-called Great Moderation”), with steady growth and low inflation. But the period since mid-2007 (the Great Recession”) has seen the worst macroeconomic turmoil since the 1930s. A dramatic plunge in trade, output and employment in late 2008 and 2009 has been followed by an unconvincing recovery. How is the lurch from stability to instability to be explained? What are the intellectual origins of the policy ...

What does the future hold for broadcasting in Britain? At a time when British broadcasting is undergoing great change, what revenues will be available for funding programming in the 1990s and beyond? Paying for Broadcasting: The Handbook presents a wide-ranging discussion of funding options open to broadcasters. Commissioned by the BBC to inform debate in the run up to the 1996 Charter Renewal, and drawing on examples from Britain and other worldwide broadcasting markets, the authors explo...

The BBC holds a special place in the world of broadcasting. It derives its funding from a compulsory levy on people who may not even use the service. The protection it receives is justified on the grounds that it contributes to national welfare because of its role in ‘public service broadcasting’. The authors of this book argue that the BBC’s funding model is becoming untenable as technology changes. Furthermore, technology has also undermined the justification for government support for p...