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Black markets, abandoned children: the devastating impact of prohibiting private adoption
John Blundell
6 September 2012
0 comments

Up until prohibition, Guatemala, China, and Russia were the last three remaining countries with a well-developed legal market in international adoptions. All other nations that had once allowed...
£2m for the happiness survey was a bargain
Kristian Niemietz
8 August 2012
3 comments

When the ONS released its national happiness survey, critics complained that its results were trivial. But looking at how interest in the debate on happiness research has ebbed since then, I would...
Cameron's welfare speech: why the critics are so upset
Kristian Niemietz
2 July 2012
0 comments

Everyone remembers this situation from their student days: You are in an oral exam. Until just now, you felt reasonably well prepared. But now you realise that all the questions are about those sub...
Was 1976 really the best year? A review of Seasons in the Sun by Dominic Sandbrook
Chris Snowdon
28 June 2012
2 comments

If he maintains this Stakhanovite work-rate, Dominic Sandbrook will have written the definitive, 8,000-page history of Britain’s post-Churchillian twentieth century by the time he is 44 years...
Fiddling with Housing Benefit won't solve the cost explosion
Kristian Niemietz
27 June 2012
6 comments

The previous government made the mistake of trying to reduce poverty without paying attention to the supply side factors driving up the basic cost of living. It churned out billions in tax credits...
IDS and the CSJ on child poverty: a critique and a defence
Kristian Niemietz
14 June 2012
1 comment

With many ifs and buts, Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms are broadly moving in the right direction. Rather than just increasing government handouts year after year, it now looks as if...
Benefit cap: with friends like these, the poor don’t need enemies
Kristian Niemietz
30 January 2012
4 comments

Once again, Britain is about to become the Bangladesh of Europe. At least this is the impression one could gather from listening to the poverty lobby and the wider anti-cuts front, including...
The benefits cap is popular - but it isn't right
Tim Leunig
27 January 2012
10 comments

The government’s proposed £26,000 cap on benefits for those out of work applies irrespective of circumstances and the family’s history. It will hit two groups: those with very...
The opponents of the ESA cuts are right for the wrong reason
Kristian Niemietz
17 January 2012
1 comment

With a clear majority, the House of Lords has voted against the proposed changes to Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), the successor of Incapacity Benefit. The opponents of the changes, inside...
New plans by Grant Shapps are a recipe for increasing homelessness
Richard Wellings
11 January 2012
7 comments

Housing minister Grant Shapps recently announced plans to make the unauthorised subletting of social housing a criminal offence, with offenders facing up to two years in prison. The...
Swedish success is not due to the welfare state
Nima Sanandaji
17 October 2011
0 comments

Sweden is often regarded as a country whose policies should be emulated by those in other nations wishing to expand the size of their governments. The reason is that Sweden combines a large public...
Poverty falls, because we are getting poorer
Kristian Niemietz
12 October 2011
1 comment

When measuring an abstract concept, occasional oddities are probably unavoidable. Take inequality, which was a hotly debated topic during the last election campaign. The opposition claimed...
In the wake of the riots we need solidarity – not big government
Philip Booth
30 September 2011
2 comments

In responding to the riots, many prominent public figures have suggested that the problem is a simple one. With regard to the criminals whose despicable behaviour has destroyed livelihoods, they...
UNICEF: forget child poverty, children consume far too much
Kristian Niemietz
29 September 2011
3 comments

Imagine I conducted a qualitative, interview-based study enquiring into some social problem. Suppose upon reading my report, you realise that by an uncanny coincidence, my interviewees’...
The London riots were not caused by ‘moral decay’ or inequality
Kristian Niemietz
30 August 2011
7 comments

Being too busy torching, looting and vandalising, the London rioters and their offshoots in other cities could not be bothered to prepare banners expressing their ‘political demands’,...
The London riots were not caused by poverty
Kristian Niemietz
12 August 2011
14 comments

Gerhart Hauptmann´s 1911 novel „Die Ratten“ (Engl. „The Rats“), set in a deprived borough of Berlin, was a powerful critique of a concept of morality that ignored the...
A smaller and better welfare state
Kristian Niemietz
14 July 2011
3 comments

Liberals who support a limited public safety net are faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, they want government to fulfil the role of a provider of last resort. They envisage a situation in which...
Rowan Williams sowed confusion last week when he raised the distinction between the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor
Philip Booth
13 June 2011
3 comments

In his recent New Statesman editorial, Archbishop Rowan Williams criticised the re-emergence of the seductive language of the deserving and underserving poor. The job of a Bishop is to...
Coalition should launch full frontal attack on Archbishop
Philip Booth
9 June 2011
15 comments

Benedict Brogan asks what David Cameron should do about Archbishop Rowan Williams' full frontal attack on health, education and welfare reform. He suggests that he should consider the PR perils...
Why contracting out of the state pension should remain
Philip Booth
20 April 2011
0 comments

The recently published Green Paper on pensions was widely welcomed. Indeed, it contained some reasonable ideas. However, it also contained a proposal to abolish contracting out of state pensions...
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