James K. Galbraith

Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government and Business Relations

University of Texas at Austin

James K. Galbraith holds the Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr. Chair of Government/Business Relations at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin, and a professorship in Government. He holds degrees from Harvard and Yale (Ph.D. in Economics, 1981). He studied as a Marshall Scholar at King's College, Cambridge, and later served as Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee from 1981-83. He was a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer in 2001 and Carnegie Scholar in 2003. In 2010 he was elected to the Lincean Academy. He is President of the Association for Evolutionary Economics for 2012.

My Additional Content

Inequality and Instability: A Study of the World Economy Just Before the Great Crisis

Inequality and Economic and Political Change: A Comparative Perspective

Paper given at the Conference @ King's, April 8th-11th, 2010.

Abstract:

Inequality in the World Economy

Presentation given at the Conference @ King's, April 8th-11th, 2010.

My Video Content

Discussion and Q&A: Inequality and Macroeconomics Dynamics 5/5

Discussion and Q&A at the panel entitled "The Impact of Inequality on Macroeconomics Dynamics" at the Institute for New Economic Thinking's (INET) Paradigm Lost Conference in Berlin. April 14, 2012. #inetberlin

James Galbraith: Inequality and Macroeconomics Dynamics 3/5

James Galbraith, Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government and Business Relations, University of Texas speaking at the panel entitled "The Impact of Inequality on Macroeconomics Dynamics" at the Institute for New Economic Thinking's (INET) Paradigm Lost Conference in Berlin. April 14, 2012. #inetberlin

Bretton Woods, Past and Present: 3. Models in Economics

What is a good model in economics? “The Kids” asked a dozen economists in the halls of the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, and we invite you to watch what they said.

Good models are those that pass the test of time, says Philippe Aghion. Brad DeLong presents what has come to be called Friedman’s “F-Twist”: assumptions don’t matter – a good model is one that predicts well. Wrong, says Anatole Kaletsky, economists ought to model the whole range of human behavior, and doing so requires re-examining the very assumptions on which our models rest. And to George Akerlof, a good model applies to the specific question asked; it corresponds to the problem at hand.

About The Kids:

Bretton Woods, Past and Present: 2. Progress in Economics

When is one theory better than the other? What is progress in economics? "The Kids" asked a dozen economists in the halls of the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, and we invite you to watch what they said.

In 2008, the world avoided making the policy mistakes of the Great Depression. That's progress, says George Akerlof. Anatole Kaletsky tells us what progress is not: to introduce, in the name of rigor, ever more unrealistic assumptions in economics, however mathematically convenient these may be. And James Galbraith compares progress to pornography: it's hard to define, but you recognize it if you ever see it.

Bretton Woods, Past and Present: 1. Ethics in Economics

My Grants

The Measurement and Assessment of Inequalities on a World Scale

This project will extend the work of the University of Texas Inequality Project, permitting new data development and research in two technical and at least three substantive areas. The technical projects are: (1) updating the core global inequality data-sets from 2000 through the Great Financial...