My Blog
The chancellor should heed Keynes – and keep public spending down
Last week’s Spring Statement by chancellor Philip Hammond has led to predictable calls to “abandon austerity”. With massive hyperbole, Labour
The social media battle against fake news has begun – beware your own emotions
Did Donald Tusk, the former Prime Minister of Poland and now president of the European Council, conspire with Vladimir Putin
Altruism and information deficits: What snowstorms teach us about economics
While weather may not seem like a typical economics topic, there are always interesting aspects to behaviour in any context.
The university pensions strike is a selfish bid to hold future generations to ransom
University lecturers began a strike over their pensions last week. The dispute may even run on and jeopardise the summer
Let’s join the IFS in acknowledging our misplaced fetishisation of economic data
Tomorrow, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will publish its latest estimates on how much the UK economy grew between
Master the art of brinkmanship to run Brexit rings around Barnier
Michel Barnier invokes a wide range of emotions this side of the Channel. To his credit, the EU’s chief Brexit
How European commissioners really allocate EU funding
“Pork barrel” has been a theme in American politics for almost as long as the United States has existed. Many
There are economic lessons to learn from TfL’s hated bus announcement experiment
The Transport for London (TfL) bus experiment has proved to be overwhelmingly unpopular. Supposedly at every bus stop (but more
Carillion shouldn’t be brought under state control, but maybe central banks should be
A strong thread in the acres of print about the Carillion debacle is that the private sector should not really
Act now, think later: Card surcharge ban is typical of myopic soundbite politics
Companies and service providers are no longer allowed to charge customers for using a credit or debit card. The new
‘Expertise’ has become a tool of the liberal establishment to drown out opposing views
The row over the Conservative-supporting journalist Toby Young’s appointment to the universities watchdog has been intense. Despite the relative obscurity
The balance between wages and capital is shifting – rent seekers had better beware
The first column of a new year is the time for a prediction. By far the hardest part of forecasting
Old-fashioned educational values offer the UK’s most deprived children a future
Economics is the gloomy science, but we can end the year on a cheery note. Newham Collegiate Sixth Form College
Companies that bow to the social media mob are operating in the wrong century
Pizza Hut is the latest addition to the list of companies grovelling to criticism on social media. The restaurant chain
It is the private sector, not the state, that has enabled America’s economic recovery
The American economy continues to power ahead. The widely respected and independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reckons that the actual
The OBR’s forecasts should be taken not just with a pinch of salt, but with the contents of an entire mine
There has been a great deal of crowing in metropolitan liberal circles over the report of the Office for Budget
Doublethinking or dim? Why the Labour party can’t be trusted with the economy
Are members of the Labour Party frontbench experts in doublethink? The concept was invented by George Orwell for his novel
Mind the gap: Economics is catching up to the fact that we’re not always rational
Do Tube strikes make Londoners better off? At first sight, the question is simply absurd. The answer is surely “no”.
There’s a difference between priceless and worthless, but economics can’t measure it
The so-called “productivity puzzle” just does not go away. The October, employment figures released by the Office for National Statistics
Catalonia tries to avoid repeating history, but Spain has economic reality on its side
Karl Marx famously wrote: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce”. The phrase might well have been coined
