̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Giancarlo Corsetti

Cambridge academics elected to British Academy fellowship

Anonymous — Mon, 27 Jul 2020 12:49:00 +0000

They are among 86 distinguished scholars to be elected to the fellowship in recognition of their work in the fields of law, economics, Middle Eastern studies, geography, history of science, art and architecture, classics, and English literature.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge academics made Fellows of the Academy this year are:

Professor Catherine Barnard (Faculty of Law; Trinity College) has been elected to the fellowship in recognition of her work on European Union law, especially the single market; Brexit and the UK-EU future relationship; employment law, especially equality law, and its European dimension.
Professor Giancarlo Corsetti (Faculty of Economics; Clare College) has been elected to the fellowship in recognition of his work in the field of economic policy and international economics, with focus on currency, financial and debt crises, European monetary union and open economy macroeconomics.
Professor Khaled Fahmy (Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies; King's College) has been elected to the fellowship in recognition of his work on modern Middle Eastern history, history of Islamic law, the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Professor Sarah Radcliffe (Department of Geography; Christ's College) has been elected to the fellowship in recognition of her work on critical development and political geography; postcolonial and decolonial geography; indigeneity; intersectionality in socio-spatial inequalities; these themes in relation to Andean lives, contestations and knowledges.
Professor James Secord (Department of History and Philosophy of Science; Christ’s College) has been elected to the fellowship in recognition of his work on history of science; science communication; natural history, evolution and geology in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Professor Caroline van Eck (Department of History of Art; King’s College) has been elected to the fellowship in recognition of her work on the history of European art and architecture c. 1800 in a globalising world.
Professor Timothy Whitmarsh (Faculty of Classics; St John's College) has been elected to the fellowship in recognition of his work on ancient Mediterranean literature, culture and thought; Greek literature, especially of the Roman Empire; cultural contacts in the ancient world; ancient religion and scepticism; literary and cultural theory.
Professor Clair Wills (Faculty of English; Murray Edwards College) has been elected to the fellowship in recognition of her work on 20th-century British and Irish cultural history; contemporary writing; the literature and social history of migration.

̽��ֱ��British Academy has also welcomed four new honorary Fellows, among them Bridget Kendall MBE, Master of Peterhouse Cambridge. Kendall is a broadcaster and writer with a particular interest in Russia, international diplomacy and security and promotion of language learning.

̽��ֱ��new Fellows join a community of over 1,400 leading minds that make up the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences. Current Fellows include the classicist Professor Dame Mary Beard, the historian Professor Sir Simon Schama and philosopher Professor Baroness Onora O’Neill, while current honorary Fellows include Dame Joan Bakewell, Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Baroness Brenda Hale.

Professor Whitmarsh said: “I have owed much, along the way, to the British Academy, who funded my postgraduate studies and awarded me a Mid-Career Fellowship in 2012-2013, which allowed me to write my book Battling the Gods. I am now greatly honoured, and genuinely humbled, to have been elected a Fellow.”

Professor Sir David Cannadine, President of the British Academy, said: "I would like to extend a warm welcome and hearty congratulations to the individuals who have joined the British Academy Fellowship. This is a time to reflect on the many invaluable contributions these academics have made to their disciplines. It is also a time for celebration, and I hope that, social distancing measures notwithstanding, each of our new Fellows is able to do so in ways great or small."

As well as a fellowship, the British Academy is a funding body for research, nationally and internationally, and a forum for debate and engagement.

Eight academics from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have been made Fellows of the prestigious British Academy for the humanities and social sciences.

I have owed much, along the way, to the British Academy ... I am now greatly honoured, and genuinely humbled, to have been elected a Fellow

Timothy Whitmarsh

̽��ֱ��British Academy

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Economic damage could be worse without lockdown and social distancing – study

fpjl2 — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 08:21:57 +0000

There is much debate over the economic costs of our lockdown lives: whether the mitigation of disease spread is worth the deepening financial crisis.

New research from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge suggests that there is no absolute trade-off between the economy and human health – and that the price of inaction could be twice as high as that of a 'structured lockdown'.

A Cambridge economist, together with researchers at the US Federal Reserve Board, has combined macroeconomics with aspects of epidemiology to develop a model for the economic consequences of social distancing.

̽��ֱ��study uses US economic and population data, but the researchers say their findings have implications for most developed economies.

It divides the working population into 'core workers' – those in healthcare as well as food and transportation, sanitation and energy supply, among others – and then everyone else, and models the spread of the virus if no action is taken.

“Without public health restrictions, the random spread of the disease will inevitably hit sectors and industries that are essential for the economy to run,” said co-author Prof Giancarlo Corsetti, from Cambridge’s Faculty of Economics.

“Labour shortfalls among core workers in particular strip more value from the economy. As essential team members within this core sector drop out of the workforce, it impairs production far more than losing those in other areas of the economy.”

By separating the core and non-core workers, the study suggests that the economy would shrink by 30% or more without lockdown and social distancing. “By ignoring this division in the workforce, we may badly underestimate the true depth of economic damage,” Corsetti said.

Using data from the US Bureau of Labour Statistics, the researchers then quantified the share of workers who could 'reasonably keep performing occupational tasks at home': 15% of those in core sectors, and 40% of everyone else currently working – along with 30% of all non-working age people, from children to the retired. This puts a third of the entire population on lockdown.

In this scenario, the infection curve is smoothed out through social distancing, and the rate of loss in economic output is around 15%, just half the level of damage if no action is taken to prevent disease spread.

Sickness rates for core workers would be the same as the rest of the population, the high levels of social distancing elsewhere act as a shield.

“This overarching policy flattens the curve,” said Corsetti. “ ̽��ֱ��peak of the infected share of the population drops from 40% to about 15%. However, this is still far too high given the capacities of healthcare systems.”

So the researchers also modelled a scenario where infection rates are kept to a manageable level for healthcare services of under 1.5% of the population for 18 months – the length of time many believe it will take for a vaccine to arrive.

This would mean lockdown shares of 25% of core workers, 60% of workers outside of core, and 47% of non-working age people. Under this scenario, the economy contracts by 20%.

̽��ֱ��study also looked at a very strict lockdown – 40% of core workers and 90% each of non-working age and everyone else – that lasts for just three months. Such a scenario simply delays the infection rates but prevents 'herd immunity', creating an economic drop comparable to that of taking no action in the first place.

“As well as containing the loss of life, committing to long-term social distancing structured to keep core workers active can significantly smooth the economic costs of the disease,” said Corsetti.

“ ̽��ֱ��more we can target lockdown policies toward sections of the population who are not active in the labour market, or who work outside of the core sector, the greater the benefit to the economy,” he said.

“What seems clear to us is that taking no action is unacceptable from public health perspective, and extremely risky from an economic perspective.”

However, Corsetti and colleagues caution that the lingering uncertainties around just how the coronavirus spreads means their scenarios are not forecasts, but should be taken as a 'blueprint' for further analysis.

̽��ֱ��research is published as a Cambridge-INET working paper [PDF].

̽��ֱ��Cambridge-INET Institute has a dedicated website for research relating to the pandemic: covid.econ.cam.ac.uk.

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̽��ֱ��worst thing for the economy would be not acting at all to prevent disease spread, followed by too short a lockdown, according to research based on US data.

Taking no action is unacceptable from public health perspective, and extremely risky from an economic perspective

Giancarlo Corsetti

White House

A reporter takes a photo of Donald Trump during a White House coronavirus briefing in April

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Global economic institute creates partnership with Cambridge economists

ljm67 — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 12:06:20 +0000

Economists at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have joined forces with the New York-based Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) to advance innovative approaches to understanding how our economy and the associated financial system really work.

In the context of financial contagion, persistent unemployment, rising inequality and intense pressure on government budgets, economists around the world recognize that conventional doctrines and models need to be reassessed. .

INET was created to facilitate this critical enquiry and broaden and accelerate the development of economic thinking that can lead to solutions for the great challenges of the 21st century.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge-INET Institute is being set up through a $ 3.75 million grant from the INET that has been matched 1:1 with funding from ̽��ֱ��Keynes Fund for Applied Economics, Mohammed El Erian, the Cambridge Endowment for Research in Finance, ̽��ֱ��Isaac Newton Trust and the Faculty of Economics..

Inaugural Director of Cambridge-INET, Professor Sanjeev Goyal, said: “Our Faculty members are at the forefront of new economic thinking about individual behaviour, the networks that shape economic exchange, the econometric analysis of financial markets, and the transmission mechanisms which relate the financial sector to the rest of the economy.”

He added: “ ̽��ֱ��support which went into the setting up of the institute – from INET itself and other matched funding – is recognition of the quality and importance of our research. It will help us to consolidate further the status of the Faculty as a leading centre for fundamental research in economics.”

̽��ֱ��Cambridge-INET will support doctoral research through PhD studentships, appoint a number of post-doctoral fellowships every year, host leading international economists, sponsor major conferences and provide seed funding for cutting-edge research projects.

̽��ֱ��Institute has four themes of research:

Networks, crowds and markets: Facebook, Twitter, the World Wide Web, airline routing, British Rail and inter-bank loans are example of networks. What are the incentives to create and dissolve links? How do these networks shape economic performance? This theme is coordinated by Prof. Sanjeev Goyal.
Transmission mechanisms and economic policy: There has been increasing interest in the study of the role of financial frictions and distortions in shaping the transmission of shocks and policies, and determining the level of demand and economic activity both within and across borders. This theme is coordinated by Prof. Giancarlo Corsetti (who is also Deputy Director of the Institute).
Information, uncertainty and incentives: Economic phenomena arise out individual decisions. The research aims to deepen our understanding of risk-sharing, herding and crises in financial markets, and the incentives and efficiency of auctions and matching mechanisms. This theme is coordinated by Prof. Hamid Sabourian.
Empirical Analysis of Financial Markets: Financial markets serve the important function of transferring risk across individuals and over time, and they provide information on the performance of firms and economies. So their effective performance is of great interest to policymakers, pension holders, and consumers, yet recent events have created profound mistrust about their operation. This theme is coordinated by Prof. Oliver Linton.

For more information visit https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/CIIT

In the wake of the global financial crisis, a new partnership plans to shake up economic thinking to reflect a rapidly changing world.

̽��ֱ��support which went into the setting up of the institute is recognition of the quality and importance of our research

Sanjeev Goyal

Tim Holt

Money4web

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