- Martin Wolf
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Martin Wolf 
Martin Wolf at Horasis Global China Business Meeting 2007[1]Born 1946
LondonOccupation Journalist Citizenship British Alma mater University of Oxford Subjects Economics Spouse(s) Alison Wolf Martin Wolf, CBE (born 1946) is a British journalist, widely considered to be one of the world's most influential writers on economics. He is associate editor and chief economics commentator at the Financial Times.
Contents
Early life
Wolf was born in London, 1946. His father Edmund was an Austrian Jewish playwright who escaped from Vienna to England before World War II.[2] Edmund met Wolf's mother in London, a Dutch Jew who had lost nearly thirty close relatives in the Holocaust.[3] Wolf recalls that his background left him wary of political extremes and encouraged his interest in economics, as he felt economic policy mistakes were one of the root causes of WWII.[2] Wolf was educated at University College School and in 1967 entered Corpus Christi College at Oxford University for his undergraduate studies. He initially studied Classics before starting the Philosophy, Politics and Economics Course[4] As a graduate student Wolf moved on to Nuffield College, also at Oxford, which he left with a master of philosophy degree in economics in 1971. Wolf has said that he never pursued a PhD because "I didn't want to become an academic". Wolf was an active supporter of the Labour Party (UK) until the early 1970s.[3]
Career
In 1971 Wolf joined the World Bank's young professionals programme, becoming a senior economist in 1974. By the start of the eighties, Wolf was deeply disillusioned with the Bank's policies undertaken under the direction of Robert McNamara - the Bank had been strongly pushing for increased capital flows to developing countries, which had resulted in many of them suffering debt crises by the early 1980s. Seeing the results of misjudged intervention by global authorities, and also influenced from the early 70s by various works critical of government intervention such as Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, Wolf shifted his views towards the right and the free market.[2][3] Wolf left the World Bank in 1981, to become Director of Studies at the Trade Policy Research Centre, in London. He joined the Financial Times in 1987, where he has been associate editor since 1990 and chief economics commentator since 1996. Up until the late 2000s, Wolf was an influential advocate of globalization and the free market. In addition to his journalism and participation in various international forums, Wolf had also attempted to influence opinion with his books; he has stated his 2004 book Why Globalization Works was intended to be a persuasive work rather than an academic study.[3] By 2008 Wolf had become disillusioned with theories promoting what he came to see as excessive reliance on the private sector. While remaining a pragmatist free of binding commitments to any one ideology, Wolf's views partially shifted away from free market thinking back to the Keynesian ideas he had been taught as a youth. He became one of the more influential drivers of the 2008–2009 Keynesian resurgence, where in late 2008 and early 2009 he used his platform on the Financial Times to advocate a massive fiscal and monetary response to the financial crisis of 2007–2010. According to Julia Loffe writing in 2009 for The New Republic, he was "arguably the most widely trusted pundit" of the crisis.[2] Wolf is a supporter of Land value taxation.[5]
Awards and recognition
Wolf was joint winner of the Wincott Foundation senior prize for excellence in financial journalism in both 1989 and 1997. He won the RTZ David Watt memorial prize in 1994. In 2000 Wolf was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire). He was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, by the University of Nottingham in 2006, and was made Doctor of Science (Economics) of University of London, honoris causa, by the London School of Economics in the same year. Wolf is a regular participant in the annual Bilderberg meetings of politicians and bankers. He is visiting fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, a Special Professor at the University of Nottingham and an honorary fellow of the Oxford Institute for Economic Policy. He has been a forum fellow at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos since 1999.[6]
Wolf is regarded as "staggeringly well connected" within elite financial circles.[2] His friends include leading financiers such as Mohamed A. El-Erian; politicians such as Manmohan Singh, Timothy Geithner and Ed Balls; many leading economists; central bankers such as Mervyn King - according to Wolf he knows all significant central bankers.[2] Despite Wolf's close connections with the powerful, he is trusted for his independence and is known to criticise initiatives promoted by his friends when he considers it in the public interests.[2] Wolf is widely regarded as one of the most influential economics journalists in the world. Lawrence H. Summers has called him "the world's preeminent financial journalist"[7] Mohamed A. El-Erian, CEO of the world's largest bond investor, said Wolf is "by far, the most influential economic columnist out there."[2] Prospect magazine described him as "the Anglosphere’s most influential finance journalist"[8], while economist Kenneth Rogoff has said "He really is the premier financial and economics writer in the world."[2]
Bibliography
- The Resistible Appeal of Fortress Europe (AEI Press 1994) ISBN 978-0844738710
- Why Globalization Works (Yale University Press 2004) ISBN 978-0-300-10252-9
- Fixing Global Finance (The Johns Hopkins University Press 2008) ISBN 978-0-8018-9048-2
References
- ^ Horasis Global China Business Meeting 2007
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Julia Loffe (2009-09-16). "Call of the Wolf". The New Republic. http://www.tnr.com/article/economy/call-the-wolf. Retrieved 2010-09-13.
- ^ a b c d "Martin Wolf - a biography of the chief economist commentator of the Financial Times and author of the book Why Globalization Works". 2004-08-01. http://www.cosmopolis.ch/english/politics/51/martin_wolf_biography.htm. Retrieved 2010-09-13.
- ^ Wolf, Martin (2009). Fixing Global Finance. Yale University Press. p. xi. ISBN 0300142773.
- ^ Philippe Legrain (2010-03-23). "Tax the ground they walk on". Prospect (magazine). http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/03/tax-the-ground-they-walk-on-2/. Retrieved 2011-09-01.
- ^ "Wolf's info page on the FT". The Financial Times. http://www.ft.com/comment/columnists/martinwolf. Retrieved 2010-09-18.
- ^ "Fixing Global Finance with Martin Wolf". The Levin Institute. 2009. http://www.levininstitute.org/wolf/transcript.cfm. Retrieved 2010-09-13.
- ^ "Prospects top 100 intellectuals 2009". Prospect (magazine). 2009. http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/prospect-100-intellectuals/. Retrieved 2010-09-13.
External links
Categories:- English journalists
- British Jews
- British economics writers
- Living people
- 1946 births
- Academics of the University of Nottingham
- Financial Times people
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