In the wake of the global financial crisis macroeconomic theory needs to change. Just like in the 1930s, at the time of the Great Depression, and in the 1970s, when inflationary pressures were unsustainable, our benchmark models of the economy have been found wanting. Earlier this year the Oxford Review of Economic Policy published a double issue of papers comprising its ‘Rebuilding Macroeconomic Theory project’ – a bold attempt to rethink how the core model should change in response to the events of the past decade.

At this event, hosted jointly with the Resolution Foundation and chaired by Evan Davis, we ask three of the papers’ authors – Professors David Vines, Wendy Carlin and Simon Wren Lewis - to speak about their work, how their thinking has evolved since they published, and what the results of project imply for the work of professional economists today.

Wendy Carlin is Professor of Economics at University College London (UCL) and Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). She is leading an international project - the CORE project - to reform the undergraduate economics curriculum. She has published widely on macroeconomics, institutions and economic performance, and the economics of transition. She has co-authored with David Soskice three macroeconomics books, the most recent is Macroeconomics: Institutions, Instability and the Financial System (OUP, 2015). She is a member of the Expert Advisory Panel of the UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility. In 2015, she was awarded a CBE for services to economics and public finance.

David Vines is Professor of Economics, and a Fellow of Balliol College, at the University of Oxford. He is also Adjunct Professor of Economics at the Australian National University, and a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research. From 2008 to 2012 he was the Research Director of the European Union’s Framework Seven PEGGED Research Program, which analysed Global Economic Governance within Europe. Professor Vines received a BA from Melbourne University in 1971, and subsequently an MA and PhD from Cambridge University. From 1985 to 1992 he was Adam Smith Professor of Political Economy at the University of Glasgow.

Simon Wren-Lewis is Professor of Economic Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government. He began his career as an economist in HM Treasury. In 1981 he moved to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. From 1988-1990, as Head of Macroeconomic Research, he supervised development of the Institute’s domestic and world models. In 1990 he became a professor at Strathclyde University, from 1995 he was at Exeter University, and in 2007 moved to the economics department (and Merton college) at Oxford. He has published papers on a wide range of macroeconomic issues in leading academic journals.

The meeting will start at 6pm. If you wish to register please email admin@spe.org.uk