New economic think-tank meets at King's

More than 150 top academics, policy-makers, and private sector leaders meet at King's this week. They are coming to the first symposium of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), a new organisation funded by the global financier George Soros (pictured right).

INET aims to develop fresh approaches to economic theory, and its founding members include four Nobel Laureates - George Akerlof, Sir James Mirrlees, A. Michael Spence and Joseph E. Stiglitz.

The Laureates will be speaking at the conference, together with Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and Lord Adair Turner of the Financial Services Authority. The delegates will discuss why current economic theory failed to predict the financial crisis and they will explore the implications of the crisis for regulatory policy.

The choice of King's is deliberate. The economist John Maynard Keynes was a Fellow of King's during the global economic crisis of the 1930s. He proposed a new approach to economics, an approach that emphasised government intervention rather than the free market. His ideas were seen as the way out of the economic slump, and they influenced US President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. It is hoped that the conference will generate similarly fresh and innovative ideas to address the current crisis.

The INET symposium takes place 8 - 11 April 2010. You can find more details on the INET website.

If you would like to host a meeting at King's, contact the Catering Department (tel: 01223 331 215; email: conferences@kings.cam.ac.uk).