User:Nick Gardner

The account of this former contributor was not re-activated after the server upgrade of March 2022.

Nick Gardner has passed away

Biography:

I am long retired after successive careers as a flight test observer, as a professional engineer, and as an economist. I have worked in two industrial companies, a research establishment and four government departments; and I have served as economic adviser to four cabinet ministers. As an engineer I was engaged in aeronautical research and development including the development of new manufacturing processes, I took part in the Concorde project and I visited the Apollo project. As an economist I evaluated numerous aerospace projects, I played a part in the development of UK competition policy and I managed a major statistical series. During my working life I contributed to several professional journals and symposiums on subjects including spotwelding, launching aid and project management, and since retirement I have written several books. One was a book on contemporary economic history and another on competition policy that was published in three editions. My latest book Mistakes – how they have happened and how some might be avoided was published in 2007. My writing activity since that date has been confined to Citizendium, and I have become Citizendium's most frequent contributor.

I now have advanced metastatic prostate cancer, and I have decided to use the limited time left to me to create a second edition of "Mistakes" (as an ebook). My CZ contributions from now on will be limited to brief updates of the current affairs articles.

CZ activities

Membership

I became a member of the Editorial Council in 2011.

Aims

My early hopes of collaboration on articles with fellow-economists have been disappointed, but my early aim of filling in the gaps in CZ's coverage of the basics of economics has been met - apart from some tidying-up. However, I have since realised that people have a need for clarification of ongoing events, of a sort that is not fully available from the other media, or from paper encylopedias - a need that Citizendium is well placed to supply. I have found the task of keeping such articles abreast of current developments to be a demanding one, that leaves little time for other CZ activities.

Approach

I have taken the view that Citizendium's main function is to serve the needs of educated laymen and that material on the main page should be confined to matter that such readers can understand.

Methodology

Citizendium's subpage format enables the otherwise confusingly three-dimensional character of articles that have a global reach to be dealt with by:-
(a) an accessible overview on the main page for the benefit of the general reader (supported by statistics, theoretical analysis and diagrams on subpages for the benefit of the more sophisticated);
(b) a blow-by-blow chronology on the Timelines subpage with hyperlinks to contemporary accounts to enable researchers to follow up on matters that are too detailed for inclusion in the main page; and,
(c) a country-by-country account on the Addendum subpage to provide a chronologically coherent account of national developments (such as would be a distracting interruption of the account of global interactions were it placed on the main page.)

I see as an advantage of this format, that it makes a Citizendium article look unlike a Wikipedia article - signalling a different approach, rather than an attempt to compete

I have used that format in Great Recession, Eurozone crisis, Arab Spring and other articles.

Articles

I have made substantial contributions to more than 80 CZ articles, of which 5 have been approved. Few have attracted much talk page comment, but many score an above-average number of hits (the figure in [] brackets is the number of thousands of hits to the nearest thousand)..

•  antitrust: a policy to limit or prevent the creation of monopoly power and to preserve competition by regulating business conduct. ^[e]
•  applied statistics: the practice of collecting and interpreting numerical observations for the purpose of generating information. ^[e]
•  Arab Spring: Protest movements in the Arab world that seek the removal of oppressive governments. ^[e] [5]
•  balance of payments: an accounting statement for the transactions of a country with the rest of the world. ^[e]
•  banking: the system of financial intermediation that provides the principle source of credit to individuals and companies. ^[e][4]
•  bank failures and rescues: an account of the occurrence , causes and consequences of bank failures, and of methods of dealing with them ^[e]
•  Bank for International Settlements: A forum of central bank governors and senior executives for the discussion and policy analysis whose standing committees include the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. ^[e]
•  Tony Blair: Former Labour Party politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1997-2007). ^[e][14]
•  Gordon Brown: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from June 2007 to May 2010; previously Chancellor of the Exchequer from May 1997. ^[e]
•  comparative advantage: The motive for trade that arises from the fact that for each trader there are things that he does best, and things that he can better obtain by trading. ^[e]
•  competition: The activity or condition of competing against others. Ecologically, the interaction between species or organisms which share a limited environmental resource. ^[e]
•  competition policy: Legislation which regulates business practices that restrict competition, and limits the ability of firms to combine in such a way as to enable them to restrict competition. ^[e]
•  crash of 1929: the sharp fall in prices on the New York Stock Exchange that contributed to the severity of the Great Depression ^[e]
•  crash of 2008: the international banking crisis that followed the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007. ^[e]
•  credit rating agency: Rating which assesses the credit worthiness of a corporation's debt issues, and is a financial indicator to potential investors of debt securities such as bonds. ^[e]
•  debt: The outcome of an agreement between a person or organisation wishing to make immediate use of resources, and one wishing to defer their use. ^[e]
•  deflation: a persistent sequence of reductions in the general level of prices. ^[e]
•  discount rate: (i) The percentage by which current value exceeds value in a year's time. (ii) The rate at which banks may borrow at their central bank's discount window. ^[e]
•  economics: The analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. ^[e]
•  economic efficiency: Ratio of the quantity of some measure of output to the quantity of input required to bring it about. ^[e]
•  elasticity (economics): The ratio of the percent change in one variable to the percent change in another variable. ^[e]
•  employment: Human activity directed to the production of goods and services. ^[e]
•  EU competition policy: A policy intended to ensure undistorted competition within the EU market, by increasing economic efficiency in member states and to remove barriers to trade between member states. ^[e]
•  Europe: Sixth largest continent; area 10,000,000 km²; pop. 720,000,000 ^[e]
•  European Union: Political and economic association of 27 European states. ^[e]
•  Eurozone: The member states of the European Union that use the euro as their common currency (Belgium, Germany¸ Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Finland) ^[e]
•  Eurozone crisis: A financial crisis involving member countries of the Eurozone ^[e][14]
•  financial economics: the economics of investment choices made by individuals and corporations, and their consequences for the economy, . ^[e]
•  Financial Stability Forum: An international economic group consisting of representatives of national financial authorities including finance ministers, central bankers, and senior members of other financial organisations. ^[e]
•  financial system: The interactive system of organisations that serve as intermediaries between lenders and borrowers. ^[e][6]
•  financial regulation: a regime that has the purpose of promoting the stability of banks and other financial institutions and the purpose of preserving the integrity of the financial system. ^[e]
•  fiscal policy: Policy concerning public expenditure, taxation and borrowing and the provision of public goods and services, and their effects upon social conduct, the distribution of wealth and the level of economic activity. ^[e][4]
•  gold standard: a currency system in which a country's central bank is required to exchange, on demand, any currency unit for a stipulated quantity of gold. ^[e]
•  Government Sponsored Enterprises: Legal entity created by the United States Congress to assist certain groups of borrowers such as homeowners, farmers, ranchers, and mortgage lenders gain access to capital markets. ^[e]
•  Great Depression: the severe downturn in economic activity that started in 1929 in Germany and the United States and affected many other countries. ^[e][8]
•  Great Depression in Britain: The Depression as it affected the United Kingdom. ^[e]
•  Great Depression in the United States: an account of the origins of the Great Depression of 1929 - 1937. ^[e]
•  Great Recession: The disruption of economic activity that began with a downturn in 2007 and generated international repercussions that continued through 2012 and into 2013. ^[e][5]
•  gross domestic product: The total of the outputs recorded in a country’s national income accounts. ^[e]
•  Group of Twenty: An informal group of twenty industrialised countries. ^[e]
•  G20 summit: A meeting of the leaders of the twenty countries that are the largest in terms of economic output. ^[e]
•  history of economic thought: the historical development of economic thinking. ^[e][5]
•  history of political thought: The development of political ideas over time since the discovery of politics in Plato, Confucius and Mencius. ^[e]
• History of the United Kingdom: Add brief definition or description[4]
•  House of Commons (United Kingdom): The primary legislative chamber of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. ^[e]
•  House of Lords: The second chamber of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. ^[e]
•  Human rights: Natural civil and political rights considered universal and applicable to all human beings worldwide. ^[e]
•  inflation: Add brief definition or description
•  international economics: Add brief definition or description [5]
•  International Monetary Fund: Add brief definition or description
•  IS-LM model: Add brief definition or description
• London: Add brief definition or description[5]
•  macroeconomics: Add brief definition or description
•  Karl Marx: Add brief definition or description+
•  microeconomics: Add brief definition or description
•  microfinance: Add brief definition or description
•  mistakes: Add brief definition or description
•  money supply: Add brief definition or description
•  monetarism: Add brief definition or description
•  monetary policy: Add brief definition or description [4]
•  national Debt: Add brief definition or description
•  New Deal: Add brief definition or description
•  Parliament of the United Kingdom: Add brief definition or description
•  politics: Add brief definition or description
•  political party: Add brief definition or description
•  philosophy of economics: Add brief definition or description
•  price index: Add brief definition or description
•  production function: Add brief definition or description
•  public expenditure: Add brief definition or description
•  public good: Add brief definition or description
•  recession (economics): Add brief definition or description
•  recession of 2008: Add brief definition or description
•  social capital: Add brief definition or description
•  sovereign default: Add brief definition or description
•  subprime mortgage crisis: Add brief definition or description[4]
•  supply and demand: Add brief definition or description
•  taxation: Add brief definition or description[5]
•  terms of trade: Add brief definition or description
•  Washington Consensus: Add brief definition or description
•  welfare economics: Add brief definition or description
•  World Bank: Add brief definition or description

Nick, which of those would you like considered for approval. Anthony.Sebastian 17:11, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Anthony, Rather a lot, I'm afraid. There's a list of economics articles ready for approval at CZ: Ready for approval#Economics with stars to suggest priority. Apart from the economics articles, I would like you to give priority to Europe, History of England and the group of 3 recently-completed articles on Parliament of the United Kingdom, House of Commons (United Kingdom) and House of Lords. Nick Gardner 10:26, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Nick, I can get the Approval Process started for those. To avoid interminable delays, will you suggest Editors in the relevant Workgroups whom I can contact to review and support the nomination for Approval if they have no objections.

As I begin this job as Approval Manager, finding Editors in relevant Workgroups willing to review and support nominations for Approval, the most difficult aspect. Your recommendations will greatly help. Anthony.Sebastian 20:23, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

The lack of active editors is the reason for the fact that few of my articles have been considered for approval. Since I am the only economics editor, I suppose the economics articles can't be considered. As for the others, the only politics and history editors that I have known to be active were Roger Lohman and Russell D Jones respectively, but I have seen no signs of CZ activity from either of them in the past year. Perhaps you can cajole them into action. I respect them both. Good luck! Nick Gardner 20:54, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Easily lost links

CZ: Ready for approval#Economics

CZ: The Editor Role

CZ:Markup tags for partial transclusion of selected text in an article

CZ:Article Deletion Policy CZ:Upload

CZ:Statistics#Daily_contributors