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    Andrew Smithers

    Economics and Markets Commentator

    Andrew Smithers studied economics at Cambridge and used to run the fund management business at S G Warburg which became Mercury Asset Management and is now BlackRock.

    He set up Smithers & Co in 1989 as an economics consultancy. Much of the comments on economics and markets that he read as a fund manager struck him as nonsense and he has had great fun in pointing this out to clients over the years.

    He now has the opportunity to disseminate his views more widely and hopes that this will amuse and inform readers.

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    • Wednesday, 30 March, 2022
      Macroeconomics
      What you thought you knew about interest rates and the market is wrong

      Conventional macroeconomic assumptions do not tally with data about returns on different kinds of capital

    • Wednesday, 1 July, 2015
      Global Economy
      How fast is moderate growth?
    • Wednesday, 24 June, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      Productivity and the decline in capital efficiency
    • Wednesday, 17 June, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      Efficiency of capital in developed economies shows long-term decline
    • Wednesday, 10 June, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      Interest rates, secular stagnation and secular decline
    • Wednesday, 3 June, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      US labour participation shows scope for improvement
    • Thursday, 28 May, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogUK business & economy
      Executive pay holds the key to the productivity puzzle

      The challenge is to alter incentives from those that damage the economy to those that help it

    • Wednesday, 27 May, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogCentral bank intervention
      Sterling, productivity and central bankers
    • Wednesday, 20 May, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      Bad information is bad for the economy
    • Monday, 4 May, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      On blog holiday
    • Wednesday, 22 April, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      Jean Tirole and the bonus culture
    • Wednesday, 15 April, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      The importance of labour participation rates
    • Wednesday, 8 April, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      Risks and dangers in the aftermath of QE
    • Wednesday, 1 April, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      Has labour lost out to capital?
    • Wednesday, 25 March, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      Pity the Poor Fed
    • Wednesday, 18 March, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      Current errors of conventional wisdom
    • Wednesday, 11 March, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      Quantitative easing and the Tokyo market
    • Wednesday, 4 March, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      What is corporate Japan doing with its cash pile?
    • Wednesday, 25 February, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      The sustainable growth of the US
    • Wednesday, 18 February, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      Fall in US capital efficiency is linked to research spending
    • Wednesday, 21 January, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      The political consequences of poor economics
    • Wednesday, 14 January, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      The myth of the balance sheet recession
    • Wednesday, 7 January, 2015
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      UK fiscal policy and the devaluation of sterling
    • Wednesday, 17 December, 2014
      Andrew Smithers' blogGlobal Economy
      Poor productivity in developed economies appears to be structural
    • Wednesday, 10 December, 2014
      Andrew Smithers' blogEU economy
      The post-recession slowdown is structural
    Previous page You are on page 1 Next page

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