Joint review

of the German editions of Mark Blyth's excellent austerity book of my own 'Austerität. Die Politik der Sparsamkeit: Die kurze Geschichte eines großen Fehlers'. There are also some snippets of an interview that we did at the Frankfurt book fair. Transcript and audio here.

Two types of German economists

Recently Wolfgang Münchau wrote in the FT that there are two types of German economists: 'those that have not read Keynes and those that have not understood Keynes.'  True as this may be there clearly is increasing interest in the German public to hear criticism of austerity. Here is me talking about 'what's wrong with saving' on German radio station Deutschlandfunk.

Predictably futile

have been my attempts to convince a German economist that excessive saving may be an economic problem. Read the transcript in German magazine Wirtschaftswoche (in German).

Austerität - Politik der Sparsamkeit: Die kurze Geschichte eines großen Fehlers

The German edition of "Austerity the great failure" will be launched at Frankfurt Bookfair this week-end. There will be a discussion about the book with Ralf Stegner, vice president of SPD. It's at the fair at

Vorwärts Stand on Sat 11 Oct at 13h30.

Details about the event are here and about the book here.

Heartland of austerity?

Angela Merkel is sometimes accused of belonging to the 'Swabian house wife' school of economics. (For readers not familiar with regional stereotyping in Germany: Swabians are often depicted as excessively frugal.). However, it seems that real Swabians are a lot more open to critical perspectives on frugality. Local SWR radio did this review cum interview of the German edition of Austerity.

The good consumer

To revive the global economy and make society more equal we should all consume more not less. How is this possible without ruining the planet and corrupting our souls?

My thoughts on the answer are here in an article for Aeon Magazine.

Radio interview about European austerity

An interview with German radio station Deutschlandfunk. Listen here (in German).