Rebuilding Macroeconomics joins the Institute for Global Prosperity

Rebuilding Macroeconomics is an ESRC funded research network, tasked with exploring how interdisciplinary insights and new methods can make macroeconomics more policy relevant. Its aim is to transform macroeconomics to address today’s major economic challenges.

Director of Rebuilding Macroeconomics, Dr Angus Armstrong said,

We are delighted to join IGP – a creative and inspiring research institute which puts people and ethics at the centre of its analysis – exactly what we believe is necessary for macroeconomics to address our real-world problems“

Founder and Director of the IGP, Professor Henrietta L. Moore sits alongside Dr Armstrong on the Management Team and is Principal Investigator of the Developing an Economy of Belonging project which explores the interactions between social security and popular acceptance of globalisation. Rebuilding Macroeconomics places macroeconomics squarely within society, making the IGP an ideal home.

Professor Moore said,

At the IGP, we challenge traditional economic models of growth arguing that to flourish communities, businesses and governments need to engage with diversity and work within environmental limits. Reworking the relationship between economic policy and quality of life matters hugely for the future of the UK. We are delighted to welcome Rebuilding Macroeconomics to the IGP. Together we aim to drive the development of new macroeconomic models focused on delivering a decent quality of life for all within the limits of the planet's resources“

The network has published over eighty Working Papers and holds regular conferences with the New Approaches to Economic Challenges directorate at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and policy institutions such as the Bank of England and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Rebuilding Macroeconomics is inviting applications for two new Research Funding Calls. The calls encourage creative and rigorous research by supporting pilot projects which incorporate interdisciplinary insights and new methods to address important ‘real world’ macroeconomic issues.

To support their aim to transform macroeconomics back into a policy-relevant social science, they are particularly interested in interdisciplinary proposals and the introduction of new methods to macroeconomics. They will consider proposals which are genuinely innovative; which are oriented towards policy-relevant problems; and which are rigorous but may be overlooked by traditional funding sources.

Research Calls:

· Levelling up: this is the core socio-economic objective of the current UK Government. The regional divides across the UK have been widely reported across many social, economic, and environmental measures including life expectancy rates, mental health, and serious illnesses. The question they wish to examine is: What is the appropriate level of analysis for understanding these inequalities?

· UK governance structures: all countries have levels of governance between the nation state and its citizens – such as devolved nations, regions, local authorities and communities. Economic models of devolution rest on economic agents with given preferences. They are interested in applied analyses of possible UK devolution beyond the standard approach, perhaps using ideas from Elinor Ostrom’s polycentric governance, certainly moving beyond devolution constructed on given preferences and game theoretic structures.

For full details on the project and the funding calls, please visit: https://www.rebuildingmacroeconomics.ac.uk/

Photo by Benjamin Schneider on Unsplash