Research activities

PEGFA Past Events | 2019

Find out about latest publications, news and current events.

Understanding dollarization: a Keynesian/Kaleckian perspective

We would like to invite you to an exciting seminar with Dr Robert Calvert Jump, who has recently joined PEGFA (University of Greenwich) as a research fellow. What does "dollarization" mean in a world of endogenous money, i.e. a world where money is not (only) created by printing pieces of paper, but (mainly) by making loans? Is it true that dollarization only constitutes a limitation of sovereignty in the short run (making it harder to run standard stabilization macro policies) or can it slow the growth process of a country? The paper builds a theoretical, Keynesian-Kaleckian growth model for a dollarized economy in a framework of endogenous money to answer these questions. We will show that, ceteris paribus, the steady-state medium-term growth rate of a dollarized economy is lower than that of a country with its own currency. We will also show that a dollarized economy is more likely to be unstable than an economy with its own currency, in the specific sense that, everything else being equal, it is more likely for a dollarized economy to fall into a debt trap

We will send further details closer to the date of the event and look forward to seeing you then. ​
  • Time: Tuesday 4 February 5pm to 7pm
  • Authors: Marco Missaglia, Università di Pavia, Italy
  • Location: Room QA063, Queen Anne Court, Greenwich Campus, University of Greenwich.
  • Tickets: The event is free

Deprivation and the electoral geography of Brexit

We would like to invite you to an exciting seminar with Dr Robert Calvert Jump, who has recently joined PEGFA (University of Greenwich) as a research fellow.

We will send further details closer to the date of the event and look forward to seeing you then. ​
  • Time: Wednesday 11th December at 5pm
  • Authors: Robert Calvert Jump (University of Greenwich) and Jo Michell (University of the West of England).
  • Location: Room QA075, Queen Anne Court, Greenwich Campus, University of Greenwich.
  • Tickets: The event is free but please sign up here

Communicating Climate Change

I would like to draw your attention to an exciting upcoming event at the University of Greenwich, Communicating Climate Change, jointly organised by the Sustainability Technology and Innovation Research (STIR) group and Greenwich University Staff/Student Ecoteam.

  • Time: Wednesday 12th December 5.00 to 7.00pm
  • Location: Room D026, Dreadnaught building, Greenwich Campus, University of Greenwich.

Programme

5-00 -5-15 Introduction and general insight from research on communicating CC Topic opened and led by Fanny Paschek

5.15 -5-30 Ecoteam Greenwich – CC communication and action at Greenwich University Topic opened and led by Ecoteam Greenwich

5.30-6.00: Can popular culture raise public awareness of climate change? Topic opened by Anne-Marie Coles

6.00 -6.30: Do politicians listen? Strategies for sustainable policy change Topic opened by Allen Duncan,

6.30-7.00 Discussion on issues raised

The structural origins of authoritarianism

We would like to invite you to an exciting event with Professor Gabriel Porcile, UN O​fficer at the ECLAC, the UN Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean, and Director of the ECLAC Summer School on Latin American economies. He will give a seminar on "The structural origins of authoritarianism".

  • Time: Tuesday 5th November at 17:00
  • Location: Room QA075, Queen Anne Court, Greenwich Campus, University of Greenwich.
  • Tickets: The event is free but please sign up via this link​.

The macroeconomic effects of income, wealth and gender inequalities and policies

  • Time: Monday 14 October 17:00 - 20:00
  • Location: Room QA080, Queen Anne Court, Greenwich Campus, University of Greenwich
  • Tickets: Tickets are free but please sign up here

We would like to invite you to a conference on "the macroeconomic effects of income, wealth and gender inequalities and policies" where we will present the results of our new project funded by the Rebuilding Macroeconomics, ESRC Network+. Speakers at the panel include Romina Boarini (OECD), Sangheon Lee (ILO), Angus Armstrong (NIESR, RM), Jerome De Henau (WBG), Ozlem Onaran (UoG), Cem Oyvat (UoG), and Denise Hawkes (UoG).

For more information and to see the program for the day, please follow the link here.

Innovation, firm dynamics, employment and growth: New developments in modelling and estimation

  • Time: Fri, 21 June 2019
  • Location: Greenwich Campus, University of Greenwich, SE109LS
  • Tickets: Tickets are free but please sign up here

The workshop brings together 14 original research papers authored by 43 distinguished contributors to the research field. The papers address five themes, four of which are substantive and one is methodological:

  • The patterns of job creation, job destruction and job reallocation by technology class, firm age/size and distance to the technology frontier
  • Sources of heterogeneity in the effects of innovation on firm survival and productivity growth by countries, sectors and firm types
  • Public support for innovation: Policy design and performance issues
  • Causal pathways and contingencies in the relationship between innovation and employment, productivity growth and survival.

The workshop is of interest for established researchers, PhD students and policy-makers. Presentations of papers listed below will be followed by comments from pre-assigned discussants and Q&A sessions.

The conference is being organised by Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre/ Institute of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability (GPERC/PEGFA) & The Department of Economic Policy at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano.

For more information and to see the program for the day, please follow the link here.

8th PKES Summer School – Introduction to Post Keynesian Economics and Political Economy

  • Time: 26th - 28th June 2019
  • Place: Greenwich Campus, University of Greenwich, SE109LS
  • Tickets: Sign up link TBA
    • Workshop only (no accommodation): £25 (PKES members) / £45 (non-PKES members)
    • Workshop + accommodation for 3 nights (Wed-Fri, 25/06-28/06).
      Early Bird registration until 26 May: £60 (PKES members) / £80 (non-PKES members)
    • Workshop + accommodation for 3 nights (Wed-Fri, 25/06-28/06).
      After 26 May: £95 (PKES members) / £110 (non-PKES members)

This three-day summer school introduces Post-Keynesian Economics as an alternative to mainstream neoclassical economic theory and neoliberal economic policy. Key assumptions in Post Keynesian Economics are that individuals face fundamental uncertainty about the future; there is a central role for 'animal spirits' in the determination of investment decisions; inflation is the result of unresolved distributional conflicts; money is an endogenous creation of the private banking system; unemployment is determined by effective demand on the goods markets; financial markets are prone to periodic boom-bust cycles.

The summer school is aimed at students of economics and social sciences. As the aim of Post Keynesian Economics and Political Economy ultimately is to provide the foundation for progressive economic policies, it may be of interest for a broader audience.

Sustainability, Technology and Innovation Research Workshop

  • Time: 25th June 2019 10.30am - 5pm
  • Place: QA210, Queen Anne Building Greenwich Campus, University of Greenwich, SE109LS
  • Tickets: Free event

Research round up of current projects happening at Greenwich.

30 - 31 March: Still Rethinking? The Need for Pluralism in Economics

  • Time: Weekend conference
  • Place: Queen Anne Building, University of Greenwich, SE10 9LS
  • Tickets: Sign up here
  • Conference website.

After the 2008 financial crisis, the call for different approaches and methodologies in Economics became irrefutable. But what has really changed in the way Economics is researched, taught and practiced? Is there progress towards a more pluralist agenda or are we facing a backlash from the established institutions? Should Economics be left entirely to economists? At Still Rethinking, we want to look at the current state of economics. The need for pluralism in Economics and for interdisciplinary approaches seems to be more urgent than ever. Today, only a handful of universities offer pluralist programmes.

The conference also aims at introducing undergraduate students to pluralism in Economics. We will look at challenges concerning economic theory, social relations, climate change, gender issues, inequalities, housing and Brexit, among other socially relevant urgent issues of our time. What has economics to offer regarding these challenges?

Speakers TBA soon. For more information, please see the official conference website.

The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire: Film Screening and Panel Discussion

  • Time: 6.00 – 9.00 pm.
  • Place: Room QA180, Queen Anne Building, University of Greenwich, SE10 9LS

Join us for this free film screening, followed by Q&A. The Spider's Web is an award-winning documentary investigating the world of Britain's secrecy jurisdictions and the City of London, and its impact on global tax revenues and public welfare.

Q&A after the film screening with:

  • John Christensen, Director, Tax Justice Network
  • Prem Sikka, Professor of Accounting, University of Essex
  • The panel will be chaired by Dr Lesley Catchpowle, Senior Lecturer in Social and Critical Accounting, University of Greenwich

Co-hosted by Rethinking Economics Greenwich, and the Institute for Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability (PEGFA)

For more information please see the facebook event.

21 March: Celebrating 30 years of Professor Mehmet Ugur

You are cordially invited to celebrate Professor Mehmet Ugur's 30 years of teaching, research and scholarly activity at the University of Greenwich. The celebration will consist of a programme of exciting speakers followed by a drinks reception. The programme of speakers are:

  • Chair: Prof Ozlem Onaran, co-director of PEGFA
  • Opening by Pro VC Jonathan Sibson, Faculty of Business, University of Greenwich
  • Prof Denise Hawkes, HoD Dept of International Business and Economics, University of Greenwich
  • Prof Mehmet Ugur, deputy director of PEGFA
  • Prof Marco Vivarelli, Professor of Economics, Catholic University of Milano
  • Dr Sefa Awaworyi Churchill, Senior Research Fellow, RMIT University
  • Dr Noemi Levy-Aksu, LSE Teaching Fellow
  • Rob Copeland, University and College Union (UCU) Policy Officer

We hope you will be able to join us to celebrate Professor Ugur's scholarly contributions and reflect on the future of academic freedom.

For more information please see here.

16 February: Transforming Finance Conference

  • Time: 10.30am - 5.30pm
  • Place: Room QA180, Queen Anne Building, University of Greenwich, SE10 9LS
  • Tickets: Sign up here
  • Conference website.

Transforming Finance aims to address the practical potential of a socialist finance. It will analyse the dominant power of the global financial system and outline the various ways that people are organising to challenge this power. Its aims are to use academic knowledge and lived experience to answer an unresolved but deeply important question: how can we make finance work for rather than against society?

Speakers for the day are:

  • Grace Blakeley, Economics commentator & Research Fellow at IPPR
  • Costas Lapavitsas, Professor of Economics at SOAS
  • Fran Boait - Executive Director at Positive Money
  • Laurie Macfarlane, Economics Editor at openDemocracy and research associate at IIPP
  • Brett Scott - Journalist, Campaigner, Author
  • Dr Adotey Bing-Pappoe, lecturer in Economics at University of Greenwich
  • Lavinia Steinfort - Researcher at Transnational Institute
  • Matthew Lawrence - Economist and former senior research fellow at IPPR
  • Ben Beach - Activist, organiser and architecture research student
  • Siôn Whellens - Cooperative worker at Calverts and director of Cooperative London
  • Dr Jeff Powell - Senior lecturer in Economics at University of Greenwich
  • Dr Maria Nikolaidi, Lecturer in Economics at University of Greenwich
  • Rhona Friedman - Criminal and human rights solicitor at Hickman & Rose and Bindmans LLP.
  • Lydia Hughes - IWGB trade union organiser with foster care workers and senior editor of Notes from Below

For more information please see the conference website above.

7 February: Asymmetric information and heterogeneous effects of R&D subsidies: Evidence on R&D investment and employment of R&D personnel

Research seminar by Prof Mehmet Ugur (University of Greenwich).  Location: University of Greenwich, Queen Anne Court, room QA 010. Time 17:00-18:00.