The Happy Band of the Self Employed
How many workers does the typical American firm employ? Actually, it is a trick question. The answer is ‘zero’. More than 50 per cent of all companies in the United States are one person operations – the owner, and no-one else. This fragmentation of size is increasingly reflected in the UK. Here, the main growth […]
Can Nanny make you stop drinking?
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has been the butt of much ridicule over the past week. A pill designed to reduce alcohol consumption among problem drinkers will be made available across the NHS. But the concept of problem drinkers is so wide that it embraces people who enjoy a couple of […]
Groupthink and the troubles at Tesco
The latest fiasco at Tesco could prove an embarrassment for more than just the retailer. There appears to have been an over-recording of profit of some £250m, and some are asking questions about the company’s auditors. Of course, the full story has yet to emerge, and Tesco’s auditors did flag issues in their most recent report. […]
Low or zero inflation is normal: competition keeps it that way
Fears of deflation are rising across Europe. Inflation keeps edging down to lower and lower rates. Eurostat estimates the rate of inflation in the Euro zone in the year to August to be only 0.4 per cent, compared to 1.3 per cent in the year to August 2013. Negative rates were observed in seven EU […]
Coping with Uncertainty: the Red Hot Topic in Economics
After months of Trappist silence, a whole plethora of large companies has pronounced on the adverse consequences for Scotland of a Yes vote tomorrow. The sectors span the economy, from oil to banks, from supermarkets to phone companies. But what will be the effect of these interventions? From the perspective of a rational economic person, […]
After the BRICs, the GIPSIs: Tackling Europe’s Problems
The Euro zone lurches into yet another crisis, with fears of deflation and a further drop in output. There are several dominant explanations of why Europe has been unable to recover from the crisis. Most commentators subscribe to them either on their own, or in various combinations, depending on their tastes. One puts the blame […]
Wall Street no smarter than Mr and Mrs Average
Lurid stories about the excesses in the UK housing market continue to proliferate. True, there is some evidence of a cooling, as the price rises tempt more sellers into the market and temporarily increase supply relative to demand. But at the same time we learn in the Sunday Times that the good burghers of Cobham […]
Scottish Independence and Fairytale Land
Sir James Mirrlees is one of the mere handful of British recipients of the Nobel Prize in economics. As his fine old Scottish surname might suggest, he has been active in the debate on independence. His latest intervention, which has attracted considerable publicity, is to pronounce that an independent Scotland should be willing to repudiate […]
Employment is rising because labour is cheap
The latest employment figures confirm the buoyancy of the UK labour market. In the quarter April-June of this year, employment rose by 167,000 on the previous quarter, to an all-time high of 30.60 million. Unemployment also fell, by no less than 132,000. Taking a somewhat longer perspective, the low point for employment was reached in […]
The predictability of the Premier League
The Premier League kicks off again this weekend. Given the abysmal showing of our boys in the World Cup, a falling off of interest might be expected. But increasingly, the competition attracts many of the best players from all over the world. A self-reinforcing process has been set up on a global scale. The more […]
