Economist, Media Figure, and Author
Harrison adheres to and is inspired by the writings of American political economist, Henry George and therefore regards himself as a Georgist.
His Georgist influences can be traced in his work. After his sojourn in Russia, he returned to his work in England. He had already become the Research Director of the Land Research Trust, London, in 1998 and worked as a corporate business advisor, as well as giving lectures on property and tax policy. In 2008 he co-founded Motherlode, a communication company based in London. He has been widely acclaimed as the only commentator to get the timing of the 2007 recession correct. Notably, he warned Gordon Brown as far back as 1997 that the UK economy would hit the peak of the cycle in 2007 – and turn down into a depression in 2010. Since then, his main focus in both writing and lecturing has been to warn of what he considers to be the dangers of using land and real estate as the primary drivers of economic growth. His work links economic policy to social reform. Harrison's macro-economic analysis is based on the theory that business conforms to a pattern of 18-year cycles, determined by the unique characteristics of the land market. According to Harrison, economists erroneously "assume that the health of the property market depends upon the condition of the rest of the economy. In fact ... property is the key factor that shapes the business cycle, not the other way around."
In 2009, Dirk Bezemer, a Professor of Economics at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, pointed out that Fred Harrison was the first and earliest economist to have predicted the global financial crisis, as far back as 1997, well before other economists such as Steve Keen, Robert Shiller, Peter Schiff, or Nouriel Roubini.
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