60. Delighted to be Chairing one of the sessions in this year's Westminster Development Studies Symposium in early May 2024. The session will discuss foreign investement in port facilities and capabilities across several European centres.
59. Pleased to have been appointed as Chief External Examiner (to October 2026) at the University of Westminster, London. April 18, 2024.
58. The February session of the ONS's Economics Forum was just as exciting as all the others I have attended recently. Apart from listening to reports from ONS economists on the usual issues such as the state of the economy in general, there were presentations on international comparisons of inflation, the labour force survey, recent data on pay growth, they type of recession that has been reported recently in the media, employment data, and so on and so forth. February 19, 2024.
57. Spending time co-Chairing the ISQOLS's 3-day 2024 Winter Conference entitled: Recent Developments in Well-being and Quality of Life Studies. For details of program see here. February 7, 8 and 9, 2024.
56. The topics I discussed in a talk I gave last October (see item 52 below), formed the basis of a more elaborate presentation (with plenty of data points, graphics and analysis), to a group of 6th formers at Caterham School in Surrey, UK. A brief description appearing on the School's news website can be found here. There were about 35 to 40 students and several staff members in attendance. I was super impressed by the quality of the questions at the end of the talk. The School will be very proud of the calibre of students it attracts. January 31, 2024.
55. Today's ONS Forum was focused on the relationship between utilisation of labour (specifically hours worked) & economic growth during the pandemic period, the general state of the UK economy now, and trade and the crisis in the middle east. January 22, 2024.
54. This morning's ONS Forum was mostly focused on the Public Service Productivity Review which has been occupying the ONS for some time. Enjoyed listening to colleagues discuss topics such as Prices Transformations and the make up the System of National Accounts from 2025. December 11, 2023.
53. Trip down memory lane today as I had the privilege of talking with graduating students back at my old stomping ground at Richmond University. The students were showcasing their Senior Projects. I saw some great work on a range of really important current topics on optimal taxation, corruption and cryptocurrencies, sportswashing, sustainability of portable energy units (batteries), the environmental Kuznets curve, etc. December 4, 2023.
52. One of the most effective modes of communication in teaching is to deliver through story-telling. Today I delivered three stories to a group of about 30 undergraduate students at Richmond University on the theme of development economics. My stories involved a brief discussion of the early 1960s work of W. W. Rostow (The Stages of Economic Growth), and the behind the scenes motivations he had for writing and publishing that book; the untold account of the drafting of the 2000-2001 World Development Report with Ravi Kanbur as its lead author; and the story of British Airways' Concorde flights between Washington D.C. and London, and James Wolfensohn's role in bringing those to an end.
I loved the feedback I got on these as it confirmed two points for me: a) students like to hear real examples of how policies take shape, especially if the examples refer to some behind-the-scenes type material; and b) stories can help get the message across in an informative and enjoyable way. October 17, 2023.
51. It was a pleasure to hear out ONS colleagues earlier today discussing a number of wide ranging issues under the heading of 'GDP after 2025: updating national accounts and balance of payments'. Treatment of the environment in the system of accounts featured heavily in the conversations. October 11, 2023.
50. In relation to the reading completed in Summer 2023, I have to mention Carol Graham's 'The Power of Hope', published by the Princeton University Press in June 2023. This was one of the most enjoyable of the serious reads I have done for a long time. My review of this will hopefully appear in the International Journal of Happiness & Development at some point in 2024, October 2023.
49. Summer 2023 has been busy with consulting work, lots of catch-up reading and a few short breaks away from home, October 2023.
48. It was a pleasure to attend 'Insights from transition economies: China, Poland and Uzbekistan' on June 22, 2023. The session had been arranged by the University of Westminster's Development Research Network, July 2023.
47. Following on from being appointed to the Board of Directors at the International Society for the Quality of Life Studies, I was asked to respond to a few interview questions for their members' newsletter. That piece may be found here, March 2023.
46. Another great session at the #ONSEconForum this morning (April 17th 2023). Topics covered included the energy intensity of the CPI, new work on developing the index of rental prices in England (the IPHRP), and the usual overview of the economy by Sam Beckett and in light of the recent IMF forecasts, April 2023.
45. I am very happy to have been appointed to the Board of Directors at the International Society for the Quality-of-Life Studies. ISQOLS promotes everything that is attractive about the social sciences to me. For information about their work visit ISQOLS.org, March 2023.
44. I was delighted to meet with an old friend, and his wife, the other evening. Kaushik Basu is on a visit to LSE. On Thursday 9th March (2023) Kaushik, Alaka and I met for dinner and spoke about old times and old friends. With his work Kaushik has always been inspiring to me. So the opportunity of a catch-up after some years was absolutely wonderful, March 2023.
43. Enjoyed attending the ONS's latest Economics Forum on February 13th, 2023. This event was focused on the broad economic outlook facing the UK, including labour market dynamics, prices and terms of trade. I was pleased to contribute by pointing out that a conversation on the terms of trade in isolation doesn't add much value to what we already know. What we need is for this discussion to be placed within the context of an economy's openness to trade, February 2023.
42. Thank you to the team at the Wednesday Breakfast Show for hosting me earlier this morning (February 8th, 2023) to talk about poverty, wealth and creating a fairer society. My contribution is for about 10 minutes and starts at the 55th minute.
41. Dealing with my local Council on the question of the future of Warren Farm Nature Reserve has been a little exhausting these past couple of weeks (late January 2023). However, I am optimistic that with the help of like-minded local residents we will make some headway in preserving Warren Farm's status as a nature reserve. As a first step in this process I was pleased to supply a statement of support which can be seen amongst those offered by others here.
40. Thank you to all attendees at my Emeritus ex-augural talk (on January 20th, 2023). I discussed my joint paper on the relationship between political freedom and levels of undernourishment across 34 low income countries over a 21 year period ending in 2018. Questions and comments were of the highest quality.
39. Attending an ONS Economics Forum event brings with it new insights and understandings. The event held at the Bank of England on October 10th, 2022 was no different.
38. After a teaching career spanning nearly 40 years, I took a major step recently and that was to retire on August 31st, 2022. The bulk of my time will now be spent on catching up with friends, doing some voluntary work, engage with consulting work and watching even more football than makes sense.
37. Thank you to the team at the Wednesday Breakfast Show for hosting me earlier this morning (August 10th, 2022) to talk about growth prospects, inflation and related issues for the UK economy. Here is the link: Wednesday Breakfast Show (my contribution is for about 15 minutes and starts at 32:15).
36. The past few months (summer 2022) have been very busy for my journal, the International Journal of Happiness & Development. My work as its Chief Editor could not have progressed without the help and dedication of a number of colleagues who acted as reviewers and advisors. As in the past, I will show my appreciation to these colleagues in due course and in a public way (probably through my Twitter page).
35. My co-authored paper has just today (June 30th, 2022) been accepted for publication by Energy & Buildings. Paper is entitled: 'Exploring the Temporal Links between Foreign Aid, Institutional Quality, and CO2 Emissions for Poorer Countries'.
34. The summer months are being spent on reading, revising papers for journals, doing some consulting work and cutting the grass.
33. One of the two papers mentioned immediately below has now (in March 2022) been given the green light and published with the Journal of Economic and Administrative Sciences.
32. Happy to have received two revise and resubmit notifications last month (January 2022) from two journals on papers I've been working on with colleagues in recent months.
31. Teaching resumed in mid-January (2022) and is progressing at a good pace.
30. I was excited to, once again, be asked to appear on Voice of Islam's Wednesday Breakfast show (29 December 2021) to discuss the recent experience of inflation in the UK. Here is the link: Wednesday Breakfast Show (my contribution is for about 20 minutes and starts at 35:36).
29. In November 2021 Dr Carola Hieker spoke to the Wellbeing Research Centre on the topic of ‘The Future of Leadership Development. Disruption and the Impact of Megatrends’. More details of Carola's talk may be found here.
28. For a second time, in 2021, I was approached and asked about my availability for a senior level position elsewhere. This time the role was to head up a School of Economics at a University outside of the UK ranked as a world top-100 university by QS World University Rankings (2020).
27. I was pleased to promote a second talk in October 2021 for the Wellbeing Research Centre. On this occasion Drs. Sabine Spangenberg and David Munyinyi presented their paper entitled: ‘Construction of a Social Welfare Function under Consideration of Conditional Self-Interest’ to an enthusiastic group of colleagues and students. For more details visit here and scroll down.
26. In October 2021 it was a pleasure to welcome back Dr Paul Fisher to the Wellbeing Research Centre to talk about ‘Greening the Central Bank Balance Sheet – or Not?’ For more details click here and scroll down.
25. In September 2021 Hamad Khan spoke to the Wellbeing Research Centre on a paper entitled 'Working with students as partners.' Further details may be found here.
24. Excited to be starting face to face teaching again in this month of September 2021. Especially, after 18 months away, I see a real buzz around campus.
23. It is always flattering to be approached and asked about one's availability for a senior executive level position elsewhere. Found myself in this position again in July 2021 when a UK public body with an annual budget running into hundreds of millions of pounds a year came knocking on the door.
22. In June 2021 I marked 18 months as the Editor-in-Chief at the International Journal of Happiness and Development. Some further details on this Journal appears under item 06 further below.
21. Summer School teaching ends today (June 30th). All delivery aims met successfully. After a bright start the main downside was poor student engagement ... perhaps the weather has been too good?
20. The PhD viva reported on below (see item 15) progressed well and satisfactorily on June 11th. Challenging area of research but, overall, competently executed.
19. I was excited to be asked again to appear on Voice of Islam's Wednesday Breakfast show (26th May 2021). This time I was involved in a general discussion of labour markets . Here is the link:
Wednesday Breakfast Show 26 May 2021 (my contribution is for about 20 minutes and starts at 1:02:25)
18. Pleased to be engaged with teaching a group of 17 bright undergraduates this summer all they can absorb about macroeconomics, all starting on May 24th 2021.
17. I was excited to appear on Voice of Islam's Wednesday Breakfast show (31st March) to discuss the case for raising minimum wage rates within the US. Here is the link:
Wednesday Breakfast Show - 31-03-2021 (My contribution starts at around the 38:35 minute.)
16. I was delighted to have been invited (in March 2021) to join the Westminster Development Policy's research network.
15. Delighted to have been asked to examine another PhD dissertation, in June 2021, at another northern university in the UK.
14. Looking forward to my invitation to give a talk on the theme of happiness and wellbeing in late January 2021 at Amity University's conference entitled: 'Student Engagement, Wellbeing, Holistic Development & the ‘New Normal’ .
13. Thrilled to have been asked to talk (on October 28, 2020) to faculty and students from the Economics Department at St. Teresa's College (in Kerala, India), on the topic of “Decent work agenda in informal labour markets to promote inclusive growth”. The poster may be found here.
12. Looking forward to participating with the Rebuilding Macroeconomics Conference on October 21-23 on the theme of Understanding Social Macroeconomics.
11. Delighted to have been asked to examine another two PhDs in July and August 2020, both at a university on the beautiful south coast of England.
10. Happy to say I've just started (3rd week of May 2020) to work with a small group of students (BA and MBA) on their dissertations. These need to end by the end of August, so it's all systems go! This experience is always energising.
09. With the Spring 2020 teaching semester over, I returned to my main writing project at the start of May 2020. In collaboration with a couple of colleagues we set about exploring relationships between income growth, undernourishment, political climate and some other variables, for more than 30 of the world's poorest countries. Our research covers the 20 year period to 2018. Happy to have finished this project in the very last week of May and off it goes to a journal for publication consideration ...
The event promoted below has had to be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
08. With the help of some colleagues very pleased to be organising a seminar around the theme of migration and refugees for the Wellbeing Research Centre. This event will take place on June 2, 2020 at Richmond University in London and will have 3 outstanding speakers in the shape of Peter Grant, Jackie Wahba and Maja Korac. See here for further details.
07. It is always a pleasure to be involved as an academic assessor for the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission. The most recent batch of MSc and PhD applications for funding I reviewed in late January, and again in early March 2020, were amongst the strongest I have seen for a while.
06. More journal related news:
Pleased to report that I have (as of mid January 2020) been appointed to the role of Editor-in-Chief for the highly innovative International Journal of Happiness and Development. Prior to this date my role with the Journal was that of Associate Editor.
The Journal describes itself as follows:
"IJHD is an interdisciplinary journal that seeks to broaden our understanding of 'happiness' and how it may relate to development from economic, political, psychological, and/or sociological perspectives. The journal entertains all definitions of happiness, including 'subjective well-being' or 'life satisfaction' – commonly used terms in economics. It welcomes rigorous and scientific papers that provide theoretical or empirical investigations which improve our understanding of how happiness is generated and how it may relate to development – interpreted at both micro and macro levels."
05. In early January 2020, after nearly 4 years, I stepped down from my role as Associate Editor for the International Journal of Education Economics and Development and returned to the Editorial Board.
04. In late November 2019, and after 4 years, I stepped down from my role as the Editor-in-Chief for the widely read International Journal of Social and Economic Research. The IJSER, and its sister Journals, attract tens of millions of online visitors per annum.
03. Friday November 8th, 2019 - It was a pleasure to be asked to attend and talk to a by-invitation-only event sponsored by the Association of Commonwealth Universities. For this event I was part of a 3-person panel discussing the challenges of achieving economic development via technological progress in low-income and fragile states.
My fellow panellists were Dr Chris Foster (Manchester University) and Professor Jon Crowcroft (Cambridge University). The panel was chaired by Ms Sarah Laessig, a Commissioner, at the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission. The event, held at the iconic QEII Conference Centre in Westminster, attracted hundreds of postgraduate students with the majority being doctoral students in universities across the UK.
The exact question the panellists had been asked to address was: “Will improvements in technology always lead to an increase in productive work and economic growth? What do we need to consider before introducing an innovative technology into low-income / fragile state economies?”
The wide-ranging discussion addressed the importance of trade, good governance, innovation and risk, learning from ‘agile’ states, labour market flexibility and regulation, and many other issues within the context of the impact of technological change. See here for the text upon which my talk was based.
02. On Wednesday November 6th, 2019 as part of my role as the Chair of Richmond University's Wellbeing Research Centre, I was excited to welcome Dr Paul Fisher (Chair of the London Bullion Market Association) to a seminar and to talk on the subject of 'Bullion: the story of gold as money and how the markets are changing to reflect modern values'.
01. On Monday September 23rd, 2019 I was delighted to chair a talk by Sanjay Raja, Senior Economist at Deutsche Bank, and to welcome him to the Wellbeing Research Centre. The purpose of the visit was for Sanjay to address the topic of 'Brexit – a story of the challenges facing the U.K. economy'. In his talk the many different aspects of the UK economy’s positioning within a future European context were explored. Discussion covered future trade, passporting rights for financial services, impact of Brexit on housing and consumption, increasing reliance on fiscal policy, as well as many other issues.
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