🚨🚨My book "Fragmented Policy Change" is forthcoming in 2026 with @universitypress.cambridge.org! 🚨 🚨 Find a preview of the cover below. You can also check out the book description here: www.cambridge.org/core/books/f... Stay tuned! 🥳

🚨🚨My book "Fragmented Policy Change" is forthcoming in 2026 with @universitypress.cambridge.org! 🚨 🚨 Find a preview of the cover below. You can also check out the book description here: www.cambridge.org/core/books/f... Stay tuned! 🥳

New paper in New Political Economy! With @ingarade.bsky.social, we study central bank strategic politicisation management in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis. Focusing on the Bank of England, we find that it devised 3 tactics to curb politicisation. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

New paper in New Political Economy! With @ingarade.bsky.social, we study central bank strategic politicisation management in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis. Focusing on the Bank of England, we find that it devised 3 tactics to curb politicisation. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

On the war in Iran, energy prices, gilt yields, and the UK government's "ironclad fiscal rules": Sadly, it seems that "setting [fiscal] rules for sunny days in the mid-2020s" was "painfully naïve" after all. 👇 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

JOB Assistant Professor of Political Theory University of Cambridge @thecambridgeschool.bsky.social www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/univers...

✍️The 2026 RA Butler Prize essay questions are now available. The RA Butler Prize is an annual essay competition in politics and international studies, open to students in Year 12 or the Lower 6th. www.polis.cam.ac.uk/about-us/pri...

If Arsenal do win the Premier League this season, they'll need to have the parade in the Cardiac Care unit because that's where everyone will be.

Did Congress forget the Fed controls inflation, or was forgetting the point? My paper in New Political Economy shows Congress engaged in strategic repoliticisation, where political conflict serves electoral interests and preserves the Fed's technocratic autonomy www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Congratulations to our PhD Francisca Valenzuela for passing her viva this Wednesday for her thesis "A comparative history of land telegraphy in nineteenth century South America." And many thanks to her examiners, Richard Noakes and Ana María Otero.

Applications are open until 17 April to our Hans Rausing Scholarship to enter an MA+PhD or PhD-only to study the history of science and/or technology from October 2026. Contact a prospective supervisor and find out more about the schemes here: tinyurl.com/mw84w7py

Chunky falls in 10 year gilt yields going a bit under the radar given all else going on. Good news for fiscal headroom. Would be different if move had been in the other direction; accusations would be levelled (mostly unfairly) at Reeves. Gilt market moves are mostly not driven by fiscal policy.

Why do #Venezuela and #Greenland matter to U.S. power? Professor Helen Thompson shares her analysis. Helen Thompson is Professor of Political Economy at @campolis.bsky.social and a Fellow at Clare College.

The Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at @kingshistory.bsky.social is inviting applications for prospective students to pursue a PhD in the History of Science and Technology. For more information, click here: tinyurl.com/mw84w7py

People should know that foreign student fees cross-subsidise inadequate home student funding very heavily. There are no free lunches in British Higher Ed.

New book, coming soon! Duncan Bell & Douglas Mao, Utopia (Oxford UP, 2026) It's a short interdisciplinary volume in the recently launched OUP Literature and Politics series. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

"The government needs to take ownership of the Budget and use it to construct a convincing narrative. That means not blaming the OBR or HMT but explaining why tax reform is necessary, why it will be good for growth and public services and how pain will be fairly shared. www.ft.com/content/a06d...

"The Tiny Desk has witnessed some pretty legendary guitar solos. Shrouded in fog, this one opens with some shred played by a puppet. Only the deeply beloved 31 Minutos could pull off such a dramatic feat, even at the Desk." youtu.be/UEqTIwRrWvA?...

This truly is an excellent article. 👇

"Los hombres y los pueblos sin memoria de nada sirven, ya que ellos no saben rendir culto a los hechos del pasado que tienen trascendencia y significación; por esto son incapaces de combatir y crear nada grande para el futuro". Salvador Allende, C Diputados, 1939. Allende vive.

As far as I can tell, and as you would expect, NIESR do not mention a "50bn black hole" anywhere in their report or commentary. Who is the BBC quoting here? No indication of where the phrase has come from, or what it refers to. Nor is there a link to the interview. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Three things to note on Gilts: i. The 30yr yield is historically quite elevated at 5.6%, the 10yr at 4.7-4.8% is a bit more normal - levels that were typical in the 2000s. What's (possibly) different is it was also normal for the economy to grow at 2.5% real, 5% nominal back then.

I have a new article out on wage-earner funds, a famous attempt at economic democracy in Sweden in the 70s & 80s. It explores the funds' defeat, emphasising the issue's stronger resonance with businesses compared to workers & the Social Democratic Party journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

How do federal and state governments drive innovation in the US? My new paper @cjres.bsky.social shows how the 'Polycentric Innovation State' with multi-level, place-based policies is reshaping regional growth in places like Michigan and Maine academic.oup.com/cjres/advanc...

What a game. And what a legend Mo is. On and off the pitch.

Great. As ever, this actually isn't about 'Green Book reforms' but much more about 'clearly stated strategic policy objectives *as set set by ministers* that form the basis for any objective appraisal of projects'. But, granted, that's much less catchy.

I had to read this several times as “prioritise growth” and “hit universities over the head” are so mutually contradictory

The Telegraph has deleted the seemingly made-up article titled “We earn £345k but soaring private school fees mean we can’t go on five holidays” featuring “Al & Alexandra Moy” from its website... but, if interested, you can access an archived version here. h/t @alanrew.bsky.social archive.is/s1GPF

The early evaluations of Sure Start were rather negative - it took a long time for benefits to appear. Sometimes government has to do the right thing whatever Treasury assessment says, as there’s enough broad evidence about early years interventions

🏭💪💲 We have a few spaces left for this week's lecture on carbon politics, American power, and the almighty dollar with Mark Blyth, a political economist and Professor at Brown University, in this upcoming event titled "Burning Down the House". Register now: www.eventbrite.com/e/burning-do...

This is such a great book. Highly recommended! 👏👏👏 @jonathanpjwhite.bsky.social

It's obviously some time ago, and other things have changed, but the most negative period of public attitudes was over the 1960s and 1970s, when net migration was *negative*

Every now again it’s useful to repeat advice about accessing papers that are behind a paywall that excludes you. Email the author. My estimate is that 90% of academics are so thrilled that a living, breathing, possibly even reading, person shows interest that they will swiftly send you a copy.

Please join us on Tues 6 May at 5pm when Emile Chabal (@emile-chabal.bsky.social) will be speaking at the History & Economics Seminar (jointly with the Modern European History Seminar). Magdalene College, Cambridge. Click for further info & abstract. www.histecon.magd.cam.ac.uk/seminar_chab...

@jdportes.bsky.social do you know anything about this? “of the 108,000 people who claimed asylum in the UK in 2024, 16,000 held a student visa.” Who are they? Also: shouldn’t this mean there are 16k asylum applications denied? www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

"Spending, tax, borrowing, and debt numbers... often take on the role of key standards for policy appraisal and debate... The means of policy commonly become the very goals governments want to achieve." @jtlabarca.bsky.social on Labour's fiscal framework

They like Farage but don't share his hostility to net zero. And they worry about the whole, you know, possible racism thing *uptalk for this bit*. Illuminating new research from @steveakehurst.bsky.social on "Reform-curious" Labour voters and a host of policy dilemmas www.ft.com/content/deb2...

The recent establishment of the UK’s Office of Value for Money is the latest attempt to identify “efficiency savings” in government. Yet as @mrweatherburn.bsky.social argues in a new policy paper, similar efforts in the past have been fraught with difficulties. historyandpolicy.org/policy-paper...

Public investment in the UK has lagged behind average OECD levels for over two decades. Read more ➡️ buff.ly/iPgoNzv

This moment when the penny drops that trying to implement bathroom bans is an impossibility for the former Tory Chief Secretary Simon Clarke is delicious.

The fiscal framework launched by Labour in October 2024 represents a contradictory enterprise, argues @jtlabarca.bsky.social #BlogVersion #DigestedRead #UKpol

My sabbatical leave allowed me to reflect on my professional life. As I’ve stepped into more senior roles in academia (plus gotten a bit older), I often get asked: 
“How do you keep writing academic articles, policy work, opinion pieces, while juggling everything else?” My answer: skillpower 🧵

La tendencia a la desorientación del PS Chileno en tiempos electorales es digna de estudio.

Matthei y la re legitimación del fascismo. Volviendo a los orígenes.

"Public debate on fiscal politics is commonly framed in terms of ‘black holes’, ‘maxed-out’ credit cards and household analogies. These terms hinder democratic deliberation" @jtlabarca.bsky.social on Labour's fiscal framework #BlogVersion #UKpol

Blog version of my @politicalquarterly.bsky.social piece. Labour's fiscal framework is a contradictory enterprise. The investment rule and PSNFL leave little room for non-financial public investment and constrain all non-financial public corporations. politicalquarterly.org.uk/blog/towards...

Yield on 10y Treasuries back above 4.5%. We're not sure who's selling but we know who the holders are. I wrote a short post with some hopefully helpful dataviz based on TIC and financial accounts. Key points: 1. Foreign holdings as % of total: declining since 2008. benjaminbraun.org/posts/treasu...

The fiscal framework launched by Labour in October 2024 represents a contradictory enterprise, argues @jtlabarca.bsky.social #BlogVersion #DigestedRead #UKpol politicalquarterly.org.uk/blog/towards...

Could you do with £10k for some humanities or social science research? We’ve opened the call for our small grants. These are assessed using partial randomisation - after applications meet our quality threshold awards are allocated at random, reducing bias www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/ba-l...