The debate over the future organisation and operation of the banking industry seems to have spluttered back into life. Just before Christmas the first report of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards made its appearance. The report focused on structures. Its most eye-catching and newsworthy recommendation was that […]
Over Christmas I went back to Capitalism Unleashed: Finance, Globalization and Welfare by Andrew Glyn. It is simultaneously a sparse and a sprawling book. The text has fewer than 190 pages, and yet it covers an immense amount of territory. I returned to the book to look for […]
The readership of this blog is increasing over time, but I’m very conscious that not everyone likes to consume their reading material online. And few people have the inclination to rummage in the blog archive to find related posts of interest. I have therefore put together a thematic […]
Many have been outraged that large companies appear to be paying next to no tax, often over periods of many years. Amazon, Google and Starbucks have felt the heat of consumer anger and the media spotlight. There are repeated calls for a clampdown on tax evasion – if […]
Where is the revolutionary thinking in economics? That was one of the first questions posed by a speaker at the Festival of Economics held last weekend in a very damp Bristol. It is also one of the most pressing and the most intriguing. I was among the hardy […]
Next weekend Bristol will host the Festival of Economics, organised under the auspices of the Festival of Ideas. The programme for the Festival of Economics has been assembled by Diane Coyle of Enlightenment Economics. It brings together economic journalists, applied academic economists, and economists in the think tank […]
Over at Noahpinion last week a post on the role of maths in economics generated plenty of comment.* This followed the award of the “Nobel Prize” in Economics to Shapley and Roth for work that is, in almost anyone’s book, highly mathematical. Noah Smith identified a number of […]
We live under a government which has set about stigmatising benefit recipients and prescribing mandatory work for many of those who wish to continue to receive assistance. It is seeking to introduce an Universal Credit system to integrate systems of assistance in a bid to “make work pay”. […]
Why do we do the things we do? I’ve been away in the Lake District over the last week and I’ve returned to thinking about this question. Toiling up some of the steeper parts of England, sweating profusely and with leg muscles begging for a respite is a […]
Over the last few days we’ve been presented with rather different perspectives on future directions for financial regulation and the City of London. The forces of conservatism are seeking to reassert themselves, arguing for a limited regulatory response to the manifest and manifold problems already exposed. In Two […]
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