Nottingham Globalisation Lectures

Controversial MPC Member, Blanchflower, to Discuss Economy in GEP Lecture

Held Thursday 29 January 2009

Professor David Blanchflower, whose warnings of recession were ignored by fellow Monetary Policy Committee members, spoke about the current economic crisis in a lecture at the Globalisation and Economic Policy Centre (GEP) at the University of Nottingham.

Professor Blanchflower’s lecture was entitled: “Macroeconomic Policy Responses in the UK”.


The isolated stance taken by Professor Blanchflower placed him at the centre of one of the highest-level policymaking disputes ever made public.


He consistently predicted the UK would pay a heavy price and fall into a lengthy downward spiral if the Bank failed to slash interest rates to stimulate the ailing economy.


Yet it was only amid the panic and seismic financial aftershocks generated by the dramatic collapse of giant investment bank Lehman Brothers that action was finally taken.


Professor Blanchflower became a member of the MPC in June 2006, but Chancellor Alistair Darling recently confirmed to MPs that he will step down in May this year.


British-born Professor Blanchflower, the Bruce V Rauner Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, flies to the UK each month to take part in MPC meetings.


His lecture, Macroeconomic Policy Responses in the UK, is part of GEP’s prestigious Leverhulme Globalisation Lecture Series 


For press release click here.

For lecture notes click here.