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James Galbraith

James K. Galbraith is the Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in government-business relations at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, a senior scholar of the Levy Economics Institute, and chair of the Board of Economists for Peace and Security. His most recent book is Unbearable Cost: Bush, Greenspan and the Economics of Empire.

Recent Articles

How the Economists Got It Wrong

James GalbraithDec 19, 2001

The American Economic Association (AEA) met January 7-9 in Boston, for a millennial program distinguished by its attention to international policy issues, most particularly financial crises (as in Asia) and the failure of the so-called "economic transition" (as in Russia).



Watching Greenspan Grow

James GalbraithDec 19, 2001


Greenspan: The Man Behind Money, Justin Martin. Perseus Publishing, 284 pages, $28.00.


Maestro: Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom, Bob Woodward. Simon and Schuster, 270 pages, $25.00.

The Surrender of Economic Policy

As long as the big choices in macroeconomic policy are off the table, other efforts to raise living standards will not make much difference.

James GalbraithDec 19, 2001

There is a common ground on economic policy that now stretches, with differences
only of degree, from the radical right to Bill Clinton. Across the spectrum,
all declare that the main job of government is to help markets work well. On
the supply side, government can help, up to a point, by providing education,
training, infrastructure, and scientific research--all public goods that
markets undervalue. But when it comes to macroeconomic policy, government
should do nothing except pursue budget balance, and leave the Federal Reserve
alone.

The New Dialectic

James GalbraithDec 19, 2001

Modern economic life crosses national boundaries to form a web of intricate association that retards aggressive and regressive nationalism. Trade, investment, enterprise, technology, communications, and travel are today relentlessly transnational. Yet this same globalism undermines the capacity of the nation-state to stabilize its economy. From this paradox comes the first of the dialectics of our time.

Keynes, Einstein, and Scientific Revolution

Economics follows the wrong model of physics. Keynes appreciated that jobs, savings, and growth are all relative.

James GalbraithDec 19, 2001

One of the most intriguing and little-noted facts about John Maynard Keynes's masterwork, The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money, concerns the first three words of its title. These are evidently cribbed from Albert Einstein.* Alone that would be only a curiosum; but there is more. The parallels between Keynes's economics and Einstein's relativity theory are deep enough, and evidently intentional enough, to provide a useful framework for thinking about what Keynes meant to do with his scientific revolution.

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