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The myth of “systemic failure” in banking
James Alexander
5 June 2009
12 comments

The threat of “systemic failure” has been used to justify recent government interventions in the financial sector. Essentially it is a “market-failure” type of argument...
Blame our inadequate politicians for the slump
Philip Booth
1 June 2009
2 comments

In every walk of life there are people who are greedy, selfish and sometimes those who downright cheat. Some MPs stretched their expenses to the limit, some people have cheated on social security...
Monopolization gone haywire
Richard A. Epstein
14 May 2009
8 comments

In my recent article on monopolization cases under Article 82 of the European Union treaty, I criticized Neelie Kroes and the European Commission for the aggressive application of competition law in...
Government failure caused the financial crisis
authors of Verdict on the Crash
12 May 2009
10 comments

In a statement published today in the Daily Telegraph and reproduced below, fourteen leading economists – authors of the comprehensive new IEA study, Verdict on the Crash - explain...
Mandelson has head in the sand
Philip Booth
30 April 2009
2 comments

In the Financial Times earlier this week, Peter Mandelson wrote:   Sir, I was surprised by the unreconstructed tone of your editorial (”The umpire should not choose sides“, April 21...
Equality Bill adds to regulatory burden but is unlikely to produce hoped-for outcomes
J. R. Shackleton
29 April 2009
8 comments

Harriet Harman’s long-promised Equality Bill looks set to land employers with further regulatory burdens, while doing little to meet its ostensible objectives – themselves of debatable...
Blame Brown’s reforms for the banking bust
Tim Congdon
30 March 2009
0 comments

The current financial crisis raises fundamental questions about the relationship between the commercial banks and the Bank of England. Before 1997 Britain had a system in which the Bank of England...
Hayek on Facebook
Dominique Lazanski
28 March 2009
4 comments

The government has just announced plans to monitor social networking sites, in the name of “anti-terrorism”. Officials claim that they will not be monitoring or recording the content of...
Tax havens under attack: Germany vs Switzerland
Kristian Niemietz
27 March 2009
6 comments

Switzerland and other so-called “tax havens” have finally succumbed to international pressure and threats to be “blacklisted” by the OECD. Banking secrecy laws will now be...
The case for privatising the Bank of England
Philip Booth
26 March 2009
4 comments

Earlier in the week, David Cameron signalled that he believed that banking regulation should be returned to the Bank of England. However, there is a danger in thinking piecemeal about this problem....
Lawyers swarm in as tribunals busier than ever before
J. R. Shackleton
23 March 2009
4 comments

Unnoticed in the economic gloom accompanying the rising unemployment figures, last week saw the publication of the statistics of employment tribunal claims for 2007-2008. The figures are quite...
Regulators are rewarded for failure
Philip Booth
16 March 2009
6 comments

I now have to admit that I was unduly optimistic about the UK response to the crash regarding the future of financial regulation. Initially, there seemed to be some humility on behalf of the...
Tax havens: the search for scapegoats
Kristian Niemietz
9 March 2009
6 comments

At a time when both public deficits and government spending are increasing (bank bailouts and stimulus packages), there is immense political pressure to address the issue of tax havens....
Gordon’s speech to Congress
Philip Booth
6 March 2009
4 comments

Surely Gordon Brown needs a new speech writer. Apparently the US Congress voted with their feet, with the empty seats being filled up with staffers but, had they stayed, what would they have...
The drug laws don’t work, they just make things worse
Nick Silver
17 February 2009
42 comments

Last week the government chose to ignore its own advisors and decided not to downgrade ecstasy to a “class B” drug. This is despite substantial evidence that existing policies have...
Why central banking doesn’t work
Terry Arthur
10 February 2009
10 comments

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What does Osborne mean?
Philip Booth
4 February 2009
4 comments

On Monday, George Osborne made an interesting speech. It would have been a good opening statement at a dinner party of economists. There was a lot to chew on but the ideas were ill defined. But they...
Madoff and the regulation of financial markets
Richard Wellings
18 December 2008
4 comments

The Madoff scandal is yet more bad news for the financial sector. Several major banks may have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the alleged scam. An important question is whether this would...
The financial crisis: more transparency, less regulation
Michael Beenstock
2 December 2008
22 comments

The gut reaction to the current financial crisis is that we need more and better regulation. Few understand that regulation is part of the problem and not its solution. The solution lies in...
Why regulation fails: Baby P and Northern Rock
Philip Booth
18 November 2008
4 comments

Without wishing to trivialise the former, there are eerie similarities between the tragic case of Baby P and the failure of Northern Rock. In the banking sector, the FSA, which has virtually...
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