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The case for raising speed limits
Richard Wellings
9 May 2013
48 comments

If major roads were privately owned and freed of government regulation, the setting of speed limits would be a commercial decision. Entrepreneurs would seek to attract customers to their routes in...
Give Parliament a year’s recess!
Philip Booth
8 May 2013
comments

It seems a pity that a government whose main economic problems are an inability to control government spending and low economic growth has responded to the local election results by writing a Queen...
The fiscal illusion: is this why Owen Jones defends benefits for wealthy pensioners?
Kristian Niemietz
7 May 2013
3 comments

There are a number of theories about why government spending in developed countries has such a persistent upward tendency, only coming to a halt once the public has been so thoroughly milked that...
Thatcher's ungenerous critics undermine society
Philip Booth
3 May 2013
1 comment

In the wake of Mrs. Thatcher’s death, there has been much discussion about her economic record and her political achievements. However, one of the more annoying points that people try to...
Housing and bread: an analogy
Kristian Niemietz
2 May 2013
2 comments

Nobody quite remembers when and why this law originally came to pass, but at some point in the distant past, the government of Analogistan introduced a nationwide statutory limit on the amount of...
Scrap 'misconceived' Solvency II regulations
Philip Booth
1 May 2013
3 comments

In 2008 the United Kingdom's Treasury department, writing about the potential 'benefits' of Solvency II, said: "Solvency II is based on a three-pillar approach used in the Basel II...
Coalition welfare reform will make work pay – but still not by enough
Kristian Niemietz
30 April 2013
3 comments

The central plank of the coalition’s welfare reform programme is finally being rolled out. By merging several major benefits and tax credits into one payment – the new universal...
Free banking was robust and effective
Steve Davies
29 April 2013
1 comment

In an earlier blog post, Philip Booth discussed the likely scenarios for Scottish monetary policy in the event of Scottish independence and the difficulties, both political and economic, associated...
Time, Cable, please!
Philip Booth
26 April 2013
3 comments

Of course, more regulation is just what the British economy needs. In particular, we need more regulation of those very small businesses that are struggling to get access to finance. Those routes...
Debts, deficits and slow growth
Steven Kates
25 April 2013
14 comments

I was given a copy of John Kenneth Galbraith's 1975 treatise which goes by the name of Money: Whence it Came, Where it Went. And there on pages 218-19 we find this: ‘Until Keynes, Say...
The crack cocaine of gambling?
Christopher Snowdon
24 April 2013
3 comments

More than fifty years have passed since bookmakers and casinos were legalised in Britain, but gambling remains at least partially taboo in some quarters. Few now remember the concerns raised about...
Can Scotland extract itself from the Bank of England?
Philip Booth
23 April 2013
4 comments

Today the Treasury has released a report on the potential currency arrangements for an independent Scotland. Here, I will leave aside the issues of who ‘owns’ the Bank of England and...
Open Bank Resolution: a credible alternative to deposit insurance?
Eric Crampton
22 April 2013
comments

New Zealand introduced deposit insurance in 2008, during the recent financial crisis. In the middle of an election campaign, and terrified that the failure of some finance companies could lead to...
No free lunch for the obese?
Len Shackleton
19 April 2013
comments

  It was interesting to read in The Times this week that many American companies which offer health insurance are fining employees who do not maintain their weight below a certain...
Thatcherism and British living standards
Kristian Niemietz
18 April 2013
comments

The purpose of a think tank – the clue is in the name – is to think big and holistically. When others talk about the colour of the curtains, we are supposed to be talking about the...
Thatcherism and poverty: did the poor get poorer?
Kristian Niemietz
17 April 2013
11 comments

The conventional wisdom in the mainstream poverty literature is that Margaret Thatcher’s policies caused an explosion of poverty. As one standard work puts it: ‘During the 1960s, just...
Increasing the minimum wage ignores economic realities
Stephanie Lis
16 April 2013
2 comments

In economically uncertain times, the government should strive to remove all blockages to employment, not create more. The national minimum wage is one such blockage. Whilst forced pay hikes may...
And when the music stops…
Philip Booth
12 April 2013
comments

Today the IEA published a monograph, The Euro: the Beginning, the Middle and…the End? Given the meeting of EU finance ministers today, there is certainly some food for thought in the...
Right to Buy is not to blame for British housing shortage
Kristian Niemietz
11 April 2013
1 comment

The Right-to-Buy programme, which enabled council tenants to buy the home they lived in at a discount price, was one of Margaret Thatcher’s less controversial policies during her time...
Thatcher changed the City forever but Big Bang isn’t the whole story
Philip Booth
10 April 2013
comments

There is a myth gaining traction that Margaret Thatcher’s deregulation of the City through the Big Bang in 1986 ultimately led to the crash of 2008. This is part of the reductionist...

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