Martin Sandbu
@MESandbu
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I’m not here. Find me on https://t.co/axi3yJuU6q.
Joined February 2013
I’m abandoning the network formerly known as Twitter - follow me on @martinsandbu.bsky.social.
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I think they got to the Moon because they figured out, in detail, how to do it before launching.
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Genuine question: why does the governor of the Bank of England encourage restraint in wage demands but not call for restraint in businesses’ attempts to protect their profit margins? Intellectual bias, ideology, greater resignation wrt price- than wage-setting, or something else?.
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When you comment on Lulashenka’s hijacking of an EU flight and kidnapping of dissident(s?), don’t neglect to call it precisely that: plane hijacking and political kidnapping.
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Johnson won 43.6% of all votes; May won 42.4%. That is not a landslide. He played the electoral system better. But seat victory was driven by Labour's vote share decline of ~8pp. So Johnson's talent is the wrecker's not the builder's, and even that was with good help from Farage.
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The European Council on Thursday is a moment of truth, unlike most events that are billed as moments of truth. It will tell the world definitively whether European countries want to act together or separately when most it at stake. My take: 1/n
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For all those who have pushed, successfully or unsuccessfully, for a rise in the minimum wage, give a thought to Alan Krueger whose death has just been announced. He first helped overturn conventional wisdom that higher wage floors must hurt employment.
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@FinancialTimes The best statement from western leaders today is @ABaerbock's: "After months of preparing lies and propaganda, President [Vladimir] Putin decided last night to make good on his threats. Russia alone has chosen this path. Ukrainians have done nothing to justify this bloodshed /.
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@BBCr4today Another looking-glass Goveism: imposing on EU-trading businesses the same bureaucracy as exports to the rest of the world, from which they have been free until now, they will give them greater "opportunity" to make those more bureaucratic exports elsewhere too.
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For my tweeps patiently awaiting a Brexit for Christmas, an advent treat. I just received an eBay shipment of an antiquarian book, and it came wrapped in a surprise choice of paper:
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The Economics of Belonging is out! My book on how to rebuild an economy that works for everyone without giving up on globalisation is available from today in hard cover, as an e-book and in audio. Get yours here:
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I am really honoured by the endorsements of my new book "The Economics of Belonging" by such great thinkers and writers - thanks to @rodrikdani, @DianeCoyle1859, @BaldwinRE, @stianwestlake and @anandMenon1. Available for pre-order now!
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The more you look at the numbers reported by @MatinaStevis the more stunning they look. According to @OurWorldInData the UK administered 11m doses in February. In same month EU sent 8m to the UK, about 3/4 of all jabs! And in total the EU exported more doses than it administered.
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If the Merkel-Macron announcement of E500bn in budgetary grants financed through common borrowing is what it says on the tin, it seems like a pretty big deal.
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@FinancialTimes @ABaerbock / "It is growing in Ukraine and in your country too. I am convinced that in Russia, too, many people will feel ashamed and furious that the name of Russia will be damaged for decades with the unscrupulous murder of its brothers and sisters in Ukraine." Brava @ABaerbock.
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Open letter from top Russian economists in Russia and abroad, condemning the war against Ukraine as a senseless act of aggression against a neighbouring sovereign state and a catastrophe for both countries.
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The many Green victories in the French municipal elections illustrate something I wrote last year: while we have been keenly watching the electoral fortunes of anti-European populism, the bigger political legacy of recent years will be the green surge.
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@FinancialTimes @ABaerbock / "This war is intended to destroy one thing — Ukrainians’ hope that after decades of unfreedom they have a right to democracy, a right to peace, and to a better future without oppression. President Putin — you will never be able to destroy this dream. /.
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Exactly. They have disarmed the "trap" by walking into it and resolving to stay there.
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I find extraordinary the number of usually thoughtful people who go out of their way to insist the priority must be not to do anything rash lest it upsets Putin.
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There is a superficial logic to the “last resort” view that is dangerous. The reality is that with exponential growth you should seek to take radical measures as early as possible. “Trying everything else first” makes lockdown costlier because it must last longer for same effect.
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This is really quite moving from @EmmanuelMacron - "le plus beau métier qui soit: de faire des citoyens libres".
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Delighted to take a delivery this morning and discover that The Economics of Belonging is now a real, tangible thing!
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This is delightful. Factory assembly in Belarus where boss insists Lukashenko won, then a worker shouts out "stand up all who voted for Tikhanovskaya" - and you can guess (or watch) what happened.
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The Lib Dems, meanwhile, increased their vote share by 4.2pp to 11.5%, or more than a 50% increase in the number of people voting for them. In any sensible voting system that would be a victory.
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This is exactly right. Well done for the UK to get most vaccine first - but it’s the same sort of well done for the guy who swipes the last ten hand sanitiser bottles on an otherwise empty shelf while others are still getting to the shop.
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My reaction too - in fact freeports was the the *first* "new opportunity" he mentioned. Shame @BBCr4today didn't make the point.
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Congratulations Mr Biden. For the sake of your voters, Trump voters, and the whole world, it is time to go big on policy. FDR big.
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Quelle tristesse pour nous qui aimons la France. C’est le cœur symbolique de l’immense monde de la culture française qui s’effondre à nos yeux. Mais rappelons-nous: c’est une création de cet esprit que nous perdons et pas l’esprit lui-même qui ne cessera pas d’enrichir l’humanité.
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In a different crisis and another context, I once argued that eurozone countries need not wait for Germany and other recalcitrants to create a eurobond. The same argument applies today for coronabonds, so I'm re-upping this old piece:
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Unacceptable for big companies like this to be surprised by what third country status means.
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Conclusion: "mandate" is always a social construct, but a much less rational one in the UK than in other democracies.
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It is time to make amends to the low-paid essential worker | Free to read
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We have put together our first Free Lunch Collection - bundling the articles from my Rethinking Macroeconomics series of newsletters from January. Please check it out and share!
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Why are governments *now* working to train vaccinators and ramp up logistics? Surely when trial results showed the vaccines would be ready, the delivery system should have been prepared to ready from day one of vaccine delivery?.
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Just wondering - do all those who think that Central Europe’s joining NATO was wrong, actually think that without NATO expansion Putin would have blithely have left Russia’s neighbours alone?.
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Much talk about how long it will take UK to agree trade deal with EU. Answer is simple: it will take exactly as long as it takes UK to accept the terms EU sets out. Is this possible within 6-12 months? Of course it is - but unlikely if withdrawal talks are anything to go by.
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Intvs with @RishiSunak and @AnnelieseDodds on @BBCr4today both led on supposedly worrying amounts of debt forcing tough choices. They should instead have focused on @OBR_UK’s obs that government debt service heading for lowest level since the 1940s! There is no fiscal emergency.
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How bad would it be to let Italy run modestly expansionary fiscal policy, allowing it a deficit closer to that what Spain got away with in the last few years? Perhaps not bad at all?
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Serious people say we need to engineer quite a lot of unemployment to cut inflation. So how costly do they indefinitely higher inflation would be, and why? (Not "permanently" as there will be positive supply shocks eventually.) How do they weigh it against job and income losses?.
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Germany’s Baerbock condemns Russia for ‘breaking elementary rules of order’ via @financialtimes.
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Is Germany willing to risk an unexceptional recession for “never again”? That is the question.
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20m is an astonishing number given that the UK has administered 32m doses to date. Much is said, much of it right, about UK's good work in building a new domestic supply chain for a Covid vaccine, but it's clear most of its rollout success relies on imports+exclusivity clauses.
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Chancellor @RishiSunak's peroration was impressive and prime ministerial - more so than anything @borisjohnson has said so far in the crisis. It may take years, but this was the moment he lost his premiership, and judging by the look on his face, he knows it.
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Lots of noise around that UK and EU are making progress towards a deal. If it turns out, as it has long seemed, to come down to the UK more or less aligning with EU competition rules in return for the EU giving up most of the fish, both sides have done something rather clever.1/3.
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The @FT paywall is down all day today. So on this #FTFreeToday, share your favourite articles with those special people in your lives (or why not the less special ones). Here are some of my own favourites:.
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It's almost as if the central banks ought to have resisted all those calls to tighten, isn't it?.
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Striking analysis from @OECDeconomy - repatriating global value chains makes economies less not more resilient to shocks. Since you can't produce *everything* in all the relevant GVCs at home you end up less diversified/more dependent on remaining imports with fewer alternatives.
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I was just told by a senior diplomat in Brussels that if the UK asked to renegotiate the deal, "we could change the colour of the paper it's printed on".
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Put differently - if you don’t want the Withdrawal Agreement on account of the backstop, you’ll end up with the backstop without the Withdrawal Agreement.
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The EU’s been accused of vaccine nationalism but one has to wonder if it has been nationalistic enough. though given that most EU countries have struggled to roll out what vaccines they have, at least lives have been saved elsewhere.
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If you read 1 thing, read this. The scariest and most logical way to make sense of all that's happened the last week
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This is why higher-debt countries should do more, not less, stimulus #fiscalspaceisanincoherentconcept.
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In my latest column, I highlight a fact too few people know: the EU Treaties impose on the @ECB a second mandate. Many people wrongly think its sole duty is price stability. In fact it is legally obliged to support the EU's economic policies so long as it keeps prices stable. /.
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2/n The Spanish government has put forward a proposal that shows a way out of the interminable old standoff. The leaders should all unite behind it.
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I wonder if I should feel merely offended at being called a queue-jumper, or doubly offended at being called it by the PM of a country that is famous for the awe in which it supposedly holds queues.
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On Brexit negotiations, many Tories seem to think they are playing chicken when the other side is in a building not a car.
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(A minor but funny implication is that the UK will leave the costly shackles of the EU just at the moment where it would have stood to be a net beneficiary of common borrowing, at least for a few years, given its dismal Covid experience. ).
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Your regular reminder that in rapidly changing times we should look at monthly inflation, not just year-on-year inflation. In the eurozone, monthly inflation just fell for the third month in a row.
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What a moving and inspiring speech by @LeoVaradkar. Compassionate truth-telling - and open and inclusive to the world. Happy St Patrick’s Day.
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Doom-mongers are wrong to underestimate the European economy
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The very hopeful news from Ukraine over the last week still leaves a lot of uncertainty about the future, but one thing is clear: those who have called for more and accelerated weapons delivery to Ukraine have been completley right. More and faster please.
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What a graph - half of the original squeeze has now disappeared. And remember that energy earnings go disproportionately to the government budget. Time to cut energy imports from Russia!.
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Extremely important. Minimum wage boosts productivity by replacing less productive by more productive jobs.
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There is a lot of sound and fury in the public debate (hopefully the scientists are just doing their thing) about whether or not to give the AstraZeneca vaccine and if so to whom. Sadly it's getting caught up in the Brexit wars too. But here are some numbers I find helpful: /.
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Economics Nobel for poverty work will help restore profession’s relevance via @financialtimes.
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Can those who say the draft withdrawal agreement is a rotten deal please describe what a good _withdrawal agreement_ would contain in their view? As opposed to what they want to see in the permanent relationship deal?.
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Very impressive. Also shows that Europe/US mostly didn't "lose" steel production to China. China just added an enormous amount to global production (while also adding a whole lot to global consumption. ).
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Good thing those Germans are desperate for a trade deal with a UK.
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Starting over again – The covid-19 pandemic is forcing a rethink in macroeconomics
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Welcome back US. But I struggle to feel the elation many others express. Survival of US democracy is a great thing but celebrating it puts the bar terribly low. That one man could to such an extent twist the US polity reveals its weakness. More than a restoration job is needed.
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A flight between two EU states seemingly forced or lured down to drag a Belarussian oppositional activist off the plane. What will you do about this @JosepBorrellF @vonderleyen @eucopresident ?.
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Important read, especially for those who thought @FukuyamaFrancis was wrong without having read him via @aeonmag.
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@adam_tooze @econjared @nytimes @jzettelmeyer @ojblanchard1 @SMerler @M_C_Klein @Brad_Setser @heimbergecon @JWMason1 Nothing about the euro stops Italy from: fixing its education system (some of the worst skill levels in OECD), its tax system, its tax collection system, its court system, its corporate governance (which favours nepotism over competence), its misallocating banking system. .
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"He plans now to set up an international research initiative to fight Covid-19 from the US." What an absolute failure by the EU.
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