Martin Wolf
Martin Harry Wolf CBE (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.
For other uses, see Martin Wolf (disambiguation).
Martin Wolf
16 August 1946
London
British
Early life and education[edit]
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]
Wolf was educated at University College School, a day independent school for boys in Hampstead in north west London, and in 1967 entered Corpus Christi College at Oxford University for his undergraduate studies. He initially studied classics before switching to Philosophy, Politics and Economics.[5]
As a graduate student Wolf moved on to Nuffield College, also at Oxford, which he left with a Master of Philosophy degree (MPhil) in economics in 1971. Wolf has said that he never pursued a PhD, because he "didn't want to become an academic".[4]
Views[edit]
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[edit]
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 Leuven Patron Saint's Day he received a doctorate honoris causa of the university [10]
Wolf is a regular participant in the annual Bilderberg meetings of politicians and bankers. He is visiting fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, a Special Professor at the University of Nottingham and an honorary fellow of the Oxford Institute for Economic Policy. He has been a forum fellow at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos since 1999.[11] Wolf has been named in the top 100 lists of global thinkers by Prospect[12] and by Foreign Policy magazine.[13]
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.
In 2019, Wolf received the Gerald Loeb Lifetime Achievement Award from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.[16]
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