Andrew Charlton: Economics Career

Andrew Charlton is the author of many books, articles, and essays on subjects ranging from macroeconomics to free trade to development, and has worked at Oxford University, the London School of Economics, and the United Nations. Charlton earned a Doctorate from Oxford University in Economics, focusing mainly on macroeconomics and the effects of free trade and development in emerging markets around the world. 

His expertise made him an obvious choice to advise former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on economic policy during the economically uncertain aftermath of the global bank crisis of 2008. His expertise also led him to represent Australia at the G20 summits from 2008 to 2010. Passionate about the environment, Andrew Charlton was Rudd’s representative at the conferences of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change. 

Charlton and many other economic experts believe that the effects of climate change will be seen in the global economy in the immediate future, and global action by the major world economic powers may be the only way to slow its effects. Andrew Charlton has studied how markets change over time as globalization has taken hold in recent years.

Andrew Charlton has written many books on macroeconomics and the strategic viability of some of the most common development strategies for countries around the world. One of those books is called The Right to Trade, which Charlton wrote with Nobel laureate and frequent collaborator Joseph Stiglitz. 

The Right to Trade examines the “aid for trade” development strategy undertaken by Western countries to help Third World countries build their economies. “Aid for trade” comprises 25% of total Official Development Assistance (ODA), and has been hailed as a key part of the global development agenda as we approach the expiration of the 2015 Millennium Development Goals. Despite the “aid to trade” model being entrenched in conventional thinking about Third World economic development, Stiglitz and Charlton argue that the approach has not delivered the results that Western leaders have hoped for. 

As an alternative, Andrew Charlton and Joseph Stiglitz lay out a new strategy that they believe should be enacted by the World Trade Organization. The authors write that developing countries should have a “right to trade” and a “right to development” under WTO regulations, and that aid for trade funds should be consolidated in a predictable and reliable framework in which countries giving aid put their funds into a Global Trade Facility and be distributed in a fair, transparent, and competitive process. These proposals, the authors argue, will create a global trading system that creates more opportunity for development in Third World countries.

Andrew Charlton has studied global development strategies for many years in the academic arena and has worked on the world stage to find solutions for the rapidly changing world economy. Charlton is a director of AlphaBeta Strategy and Economics and is an honorary fellow of Melbourne University. He lives and works in Sydney, Australia. 

Visit https://www.themonthly.com.au/author/andrew-charlton for more details about him.