The Future of Europe: Hayek or Keynes?

Date of event: 4.6. 14:00 - 4.6. 2019 16:00 - A debate with lord Robert Skidelsky

The Prague Centre for Transatlantic Relations of the CEVRO Institute (PCTR) organised a public debate “The Future of Europe: Hayek or Keynes”. The debate took place on Tuesday, June 4, 2019, from 2:00 pm, in the CEVRO Institute (Jungmannova 17, Prague 1).

The main guests were Lord Robert Skidelsky, Professor em. of Political Economy at the University of Warwick, and Mojmír Hampl, former Deputy Governor of the Czech National Bank

The debate was be introduced and moderated by Josef Šíma, President of CEVRO Institute

Annotation of event:

Their theories have dominated the modern economy: Friedrich August von Hayek, an apologist of the free market, and John Maynard Keynes, a proponent of state interventions. Keynes’ plea for deficit spending, widely invoked – and often overstrained – by politicians, shaped the European economy of the post-war decades. Hayek, the defender of the Austrian School of economics, was highly influential with his theory of capital and economic cycles for the decades thereafter. How do these theories influence current debates and what do they have to offer for the future of Europe’s economy? These will be highlighted in a debate with Lord Robert Skidelsky, arguably the most notable expert on Keynes. His three-volume biography of the British economist (published in 1983, 1992, 2000) received numerous prizes, including the Lionel Gelber Prize for International Relations and the Council on Foreign Relations Prize for International Relations.

Lord Robert Skidelsky is Professor em. of Political Economy at the University of Warwick. He is the author of The World After Communism (1995) (American edition titled The Road from Serfdom). Skidelsky was made a life peer in 1991 and elected Fellow of the British Academy in 1994.