Congratulations to Mark Manger on his successful SSHRC

May 28, 2014

Professor Mark Manger has been awarded a three-year SSHRC Insight grant for his project, “Mercantilism in a Liberal Economic Order,” in collaboration with Thomas Sattler (London School of Economics) and J. Scott Matthews (Memorial University).

 

‘Why do some countries run persistent current account surpluses? Why do others run deficits, often over decades, leading to enduring global financial imbalances? Countries that continuously export more than they import and save more than they spend (surplus countries) accumulate capital that needs to be reinvested abroad. Countries that import more than they export and consume more than they save (deficit countries) borrow from surplus countries. Such persistent imbalances are the root cause of most financial crises and contributed to the recent Eurozone crisis. Yet the existing literature is either focused on the consequences rather than causes of imbalances, or explains barely half of the cross-country variation.’

Professor Manger’s project investigates the political economy factors that underlie persistent current account imbalances and combines the statistical analysis of macroeconomic data with experimental studies and formal models.