By Emiliya Lazarova Last Saturday, the 27th June, Ireland announced its new coalitional government. It had been a gobsmacking 140 days since its general election. The protracted time it took the coalitional members to agree on a platform testifies of the challenges for decision-making that this coalition will face: both in terms of its internal … Continue reading There is a new Irish Government: but for how long?
Are your policy-makers making the right decisions?
By Sheheryar Banuri During situations of crisis, such as the one we are going through, we rely on a tiny subset of our population to make timely and important decisions. The decisions that they make affect us now and will continue to affect us for a long time to come. I recently wrote a book … Continue reading Are your policy-makers making the right decisions?
The Economic History of Plague
By Duncan Watson The FT commentary starts informative: "The Black Death is often credited with transforming labour relations in Europe. Peasants, now scarce, could bargain for better terms and conditions; wages started to rise as feudal lords competed for workers…". It is only how the paragraph ends that engineers scowl or nod, as indicated by … Continue reading The Economic History of Plague
Dropping the ball: How the past is useful, but only if you learn from it
By Sheheryar Banuri During a keynote speech given during the International Association for Research in Economic Psychology annual conference in 2009, the eminent psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer, explained how coaches teach children to catch a ball. When you think about it, catching a ball is an incredibly complex calculation. You need to process a bunch of … Continue reading Dropping the ball: How the past is useful, but only if you learn from it
Credible Leadership in the Time of Coronavirus
By David J. Cooper*, John Hamman**, and Roberto Weber*** Leaders are judged by what they say in times of crisis. The news has been filled with the pronouncements of elected officials from the president on down. Many have been filled with optimistic statements that the risk of Covid-19 was overstated, hardly more than the everyday … Continue reading Credible Leadership in the Time of Coronavirus
Labour Lost
By Duncan Watson 2017's Operation Cupcake. Behind the scenes, a WhatsApp group is busy plotting. Lose the Stoke-on-Trent by-election and the Labour managerial team might be able to replace Jeremy Corbyn with their preferred choice, Tom Watson. A web of intrigue subsequently ensues, seemingly constructed to ensure that the next general election is lost. The … Continue reading Labour Lost
More than just Bunnies: Easter and the Economics of Sustainable Cacao
By Corrado Di Maria & Gaetano Grilli At the University of East Anglia, we are very familiar with bunnies, they keep hopping in front of our bikes when we cycle to work and keep us company from the shadows when we have our lunches on the lawns. I am sure that now, three weeks into … Continue reading More than just Bunnies: Easter and the Economics of Sustainable Cacao
Key Worker: Underpaid or Exploited?
By Duncan Watson Cradle the rich. Lullaby them with the promise of lower taxation and reawaken the wealth creator. It's a stance that dates all the way back to me as a nipper undergraduate at Kent. The supply-sider economist would regularly feed us their brew and we could hide from Keynes' socialist past. We must, … Continue reading Key Worker: Underpaid or Exploited?
COVID-19 and the Visible Fist
By Duncan Watson February. Home Secretary Patel is on interview overdrive. She's selling her Government's proposal to limit low-skilled immigrant hitchhikers. We're already too crowded; our firms must drive the native workshy to fill these trifling trades. Fast forward to March; COVID-19 postpones that immigration control race. Valuations become fluid and the low skilled are … Continue reading COVID-19 and the Visible Fist