Is the UK's Financial System More Blight than Blessing?

When asked in the House of Lords to assess the cost/benefit of the financial sector, the government went to a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, a multinational finance firm. It's resisting efforts to have a formal assessment of the costs and the benefits.

But Sheffield's own political economy research institute attempted it - and calculated its cost to the UK between 1995 and 2015 is in the region of £4,500 billion. This total figure amounts to roughly 2.5 years of the average GDP in that time.

And the problem is global. In 2018 Nicholas Shaxson's The Finance Curse: How global finance is making us all poorer was published. This event will explore the problem and focus on the ways in which we might wind ourselves out of it, towards a more prosperous, more equal, more environmentally-friendly UK - and world.

Featuring Professor Andrew Baker of Sheffield Political Economic Research Institute (SPERI) and Nicholas Shaxson (Tax Justice Network and author of Treasure Islands). Chaired by Natalie Bennett, Green Party member of the House of Lords.

http://speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/people/andrew-baker

https://twitter.com/sperishefuni

https://www.taxjustice.net/taxjustice_team/nicholas-shaxson

https://twitter.com/nickshaxson