James K. Galbraith

Background

Galbraith is a son of the renowned Canadian-American economist John Kenneth Galbraith and Catherine Galbraith (née Catherine Merriam Atwater), and is the brother of the former diplomat, commentator and 2016 Vermont gubernatorial candidate Peter W. Galbraith. He earned his B.A., magna cum laude, from Harvard College in 1974 and Ph.D. from Yale University in 1981, both in economics. From 1974 to 1975, Galbraith studied as a Marshall Scholar at King's College, Cambridge.

Career

From 1981 to 1982, Galbraith served on the staff of the Congress of the United States, eventually as executive director of the Joint Economic Committee. In 1985, he was a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution.

Galbraith is a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and at the Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin. Galbraith heads up the University of Texas Inequality Project (UTIP), which has been described by economic historian Lord Skidelsky as "pioneering inequality measurement". UTIP promotes the Theil index over the Gini coefficient as a measurement for comparing inequality between groups, regions and countries.

In March 2008, Galbraith used the 25th Annual Milton Friedman Distinguished Lecture to launch a sweeping attack on the Washington Consensus on free market policies, especially the monetarist version. He argued strongly that Keynesian economics offered a solution to the 2008 financial crisis, whereas monetarist policies would deepen the recession. Towards the end of 2008 and into 2009, many policymakers around the world increased government spending and/or cut taxes, arguably in line with Galbraith's views, as part of the Keynesian resurgence described by the Financial Times as "a stunning reversal of the orthodoxy of the past several decades".

In 2010, Galbraith edited an edition of his father's works for the Library of America series. He was interviewed for the 2021 JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass documentary.

Writings

Galbraith's books include ; ; , co-edited with Maureen Berner; and . He is the author of two textbooks – (with Robert L. Heilbroner) and (with William Darity Jr.) He also contributes a column to and writes regularly for , , , and . His op-ed pieces have appeared in , , and other newspapers. Galbraith argues that modern America has fallen prey to a wealthy, government-controlling "predatory class". He said:

Galbraith is highly critical of the George W. Bush administration's foreign policy apropos of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He stated:

Much like his father in writing A Tenured Professor, the junior Galbraith is a critic of his own profession. He wrote:

Humanitarian initiatives

Galbraith is the chairman of Economists for Peace and Security, formerly known as Economists Against the Arms Race and later Economists Allied for Arms Reduction (ECAAR), an international association of professional economists concerned with peace and security issues. In 2009, he joined the project Soldiers of Peace, a documentary for global peace and against all wars, which has won various awards in film festivals.

Books

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References

References

1. "James K. Galbraith". U Texas.
2. Skidelsky, Robert. (2009). "Keynes: The return of the Master". Allen Lane.
3. Galbraith, James K. "The Collapse of Monetarism and the Irrelevance of the New Monetary Consensus". The University of Texas.
4. "The undeniable shift to Keynes". The Financial Times.
5. Galbraith, John Kenneth. (2010). "The Affluent Society and Other Writings 1952–1967". The Library of America.
6. (6 January 2023). "60 years on, JFK’s murder shrouded in mystery". The Australian.
7. Galbraith, James K. (June 2006). "Predator State". Mother Jones.
8. Galbraith, James K.. (November 6, 2002). "The Unbearable Costs of Empire".
9. (November 30, 2002). "How the Economists got it wrong". Prospect.
10. "James K. Galbraith". Soldiers of Peace.
11. (October 18, 2009). "Soldati di Pace". Google.