Embarrassing academic reversals show expert opinions are often built on sand
Last week we saw yet another major reversal of opinion by experts. For years we have all been lectured severely on the need to finish every single course of prescription drugs. But the latest wisdom is that this is not necessary. The announcement that petrol and diesel cars will be banned by 2040 only serves […]
Sorry Corbyn, consumers aren’t as sold on nationalisation as you’d like to think
One of the most remarkable features of the Conservative election campaign was the dog which did not bark. There was no systematic attempt to undermine Jeremy Corbyn’s wholly implausible economic narrative. Magic Money Tree comments aside, Labour’s economic incompetence was allowed to pass almost unchallenged. One part of Labour’s economic offer which really did strike […]
Labour’s plans add up on paper, but that won’t translate to the real world
The two main manifestos have been published. Initially at least, the Labour one seems the more popular. Many people are susceptible to being bribed with other people’s money. Labour claims that their plans to spend an additional £49 billion have been fully costed. At one level, this is true. A set of tax changes and […]
Economists have lost the public’s trust by meddling in politics
Michael Gove famously said during the Brexit campaign that people “have had enough of experts”. Certainly, the outcome suggests that many were sceptical of the doom-laden economic projections of Project Fear. But what do the public think about economists themselves? An intriguing survey released last week by ING bank and the Bristol University Economics Network […]
Don’t believe the myths: Capitalism has performed well since the financial crisis
Ten years ago, the financial crisis began to grip the Western economies. During the course of 2007, GDP growth slowed markedly everywhere. By the end of 2008, output was in free fall. A key theme in economic commentary is the sluggishness of the subsequent recovery of the developed economies. The picture is not quite as […]
Kenneth Arrow proved economists needn’t be loud to make a difference
Does winning the Nobel Prize in economics cause longevity? We might be forgiven for thinking so. Thomas Schelling died last year aged 95. The author of the famous textbook, Paul Samuelson, passed away at 94, whilst his colleague, Bob Solow, is still going strong at 92. The British Laureate Ronald Coase reached the age of […]
Claims that a low tax, low regulation UK would be a disaster are rubbish
Dame Minouche Shafik, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, is leaving to become Director of the London School of Economics. Last weekend, she gave her final interview wearing her Bank hat. Shafik issued what was described in the media as a “thinly veiled warning” to the Chancellor, Phillip Hammond. She stated that it was […]
A tale of two Eurozones: Greater Germany and Club Med are drifting ever further apart
At the end of last week Federica Mogherini met leading members of the Trump administration. Mogherini, yet another Italian politician turned Euro-bureaucrat, is in fact the foreign policy chief of the European Union. She stood on her dignity, or rather the dignity of the European Commission, issuing a warning to America not to interfere with politics […]
It’s fanciful to think China’s economy will overtake the US’s anytime soon
Possibly the single most important of the tensions stoked up by President Trump is the rivalry between the United States and China. Economic strength will be the ultimate determinant of this struggle for the position of Top Nation. Comparisons of the size of economies, particularly ones at very different levels of income per head, are fraught […]
Why the economics profession remains blind to the benefits of Brexit
The office for National Statistics last week estimated that the UK economy grew at an annual rate of 2.4 per cent in the final quarter of last year. This is slightly above the long-term average growth of the past three decades. But a Financial Times survey this month showed that the majority of economists remain […]
