Martin Harry WolfCBE (born 16 August[1] 1946 in London) is a British journalist who focuses on economics. He is the chief economics commentator at the Financial Times. [2] He also writes a weekly column for the French newspaper Le Monde.
Early life and education
Wolf was born in London, in 1946. His father Edmund was an Austrian Jewish playwright who migrated from Vienna to England before World War II.[3]
In London, Edmund met Wolf's mother, a Dutch Jew who had lost nearly thirty close relatives in the Holocaust.[4] 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 World War II.[3] He was an active supporter of the Labour Party until the early 1970s.[4]
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 1970s 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.[3][4]
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 globalisation 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 that his 2004 book, Why Globalization Works, was intended to be a persuasive work rather than an academic study. By 2008, Wolf had become disillusioned with theories promoting what he came to see 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 while young.[3][4]
He became one of the more influential drivers of the 2008–2009 Keynesian resurgence, and 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 Ioffe writing in 2009 for The New Republic, he was "arguably the most widely trusted pundit" of the crisis.[3] Wolf is a supporter of a land value tax.[6]
In 2012, Wolf stated in remarks for the Financial Times that public goods are building blocks of civilisation: security and safety, knowledge and science, a sustainable environment, trust, the Rechtsstaat, and economic and financial stability.[7]
Wolf maintained in December 2022 the government's failure to maintain real pay in the public sector had an adverse effect on recruitment and retention of staff. Since 2010 real average pay rose 5.5% in the private sector till September 2022, but fell 5.9% in the public sector. If it wanted to, the government could raise taxes to pay for pay rises. There were too few key public sector staff and their quality raised concerns. NHS England data "show a vacancy rate of 11.9 per cent as at September 30 2022 within the Registered Nursing staff group (47,496 vacancies). This is an increase from the same period in the previous year, when the vacancy rate was 10.5 per cent (39,931 vacancies)." Also too few teachers were recruited in subjects like physics or design & technology. Poor health damaged labour supply. Allowing inflation to bring real pay down and expecting services to maintain or improve standards was in Wolf's opinion "plainly dishonest." Wolf stated the government should keep public sector pay comparable with private sector pay particularly where there are noteworthy recruitment and retention issues.[9]
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 Order 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. In 2018, on the occasion of the KU LeuvenPatron Saint's Day he received a doctorate honoris causa of the university [10]
Wolf is regarded as "staggeringly well connected" within financial circles.[3] 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.[3] 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 to be in the public interest.[3] 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."[14] Mohamed A. El-Erian, former CEO of the PIMCO, said Wolf is "by far, the most influential economic columnist out there".[3]Paul Krugman wrote of him that "Wolf doesn't even have a PhD. And that matters not at all; what he has is a keen sense of observation, a level head, and an open mind."[15]
Prospect magazine described him as "the Anglosphere's most influential finance journalist",[12] while economist Kenneth Rogoff has said, "He really is the premier financial and economics writer in the world".[3] In 2012, he received the Ischia International Journalism Award.
