Prisons, incentives and how to save the planet
Criminals are refusing to leave Portugal’s prisons. According to the International Herald Tribune, prisoners are starting to want to serve the full amount of their sentences rather than be released on parole. This is despite the fact that there is record over-crowding and conditions inside are reported to be dire. Motoring offenders are increasingly failing to […]
A stitch in time. We need smarter government, but less of it
What is the connection between the content of Boris Johnson’s speech this week to the CBI, tax avoidance and evasion, executive pay, petty crime and plagiarism by students? This is yet another one where economics can help us with the solution. Economists have long used the example of a factory which imposes costs on other […]
International Airlines Group: a ‘fantastic object’? The psychology of mergers and acquisitions
International Airlines Group (IAG), formed in January 2011 by a merger of British Airways and Iberia, is in the news. Operating losses at Iberia in the first nine months of the financial year are believed to be in excess of £200 million. Since the start of last year, IAG’s shares are down by nearly 40 […]
Our Friends in the North are trapped in a monetary union
Michael Heseltine’s report on economic growth came out last week. It contains 89 recommendations. A mere 57 varieties, to recall the famous Heinz slogan, might have connected it more with popular culture. The report has already attracted a lot of comment, mainly that Lord Heseltine seems nostalgic for things like the Regional Development Agencies and […]
Corporation tax: fostering the illusions of the electorate that someone else will pay
Corporation tax is very much in the news. Starbucks is merely the latest to be in the spotlight, having paid no corporation tax on more than £1billion of sales in the past three years. This became noteworthy when the Prime Minister himself declared he was unhappy with the level of tax avoidance by big corporations working […]
If it can happen to Google, who can feel safe?
The dramatic crash in Google’s share price and the temporary suspension of trading in the company’s shares made headline news. The event was triggered by the 20 per cent year-on-year fall in profits in the third quarter of this year. As usual, there was no shortage of explanations of why this happened – after the […]
Don’t say IMF, it’s IMF Squared!
In the boom decade of the 2000s, corporate rebranding and renaming was all the rage. Some were successful. Others are best forgotten, like PWC’s proposal to bestow the name of Monday on its consulting arm. But as the world’s economic recovery gathers momentum, perhaps it is time to revive the practice. A prime candidate is […]
Policy makers have learned from the mistakes of the 1930s
Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman will shortly be in town. With Lord Richard Layard, he will be calling for more public spending and borrowing. The two have issued a ‘Manifesto for Economic Sense’. But is it? The opening sentences make dramatic claims: ‘More than four years after the financial crisis began, the world’s major advanced […]
Ninja Turtles, Nick Clegg and Market Failure
Christmas is coming. Retailers are beginning to push their offers hard. The first page of a search on Google for ‘Christmas Toys 2012’ is full of sites announcing the ones which will be ‘hot’ or ‘top’. In total, there are over 75 million results available to be perused. Last year it was Mishling Tree Monsters, […]
George Osborne’s economic policy seeks to blind markets from the truth
Andrew Mitchell, the government’s chief whip, remains in some difficulty after his exchange with the police at the gates of Downing Street. At the heart of the incident there is an objective reality. Either he used the word pleb, or he didn’t. Either the police were officious jobsworths, or they were the epitome of politeness. […]
