Monthly Archives: October 2006
Oxbridge interview questions
This morning the Today programme had a short news item about the sort of questions asked by Oxbridge Dons to potential students. My favourite was the following: “Every person alive today has a molecule of Caesar’s last breath in them, … Continue reading
OFT reduces work
Will the UK’s antitrust authority, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) achieve more success by reducing its caseload by up to 40%? I’m not sure. Firstly, the OFT has stated in the recent past that it intends to pursue the … Continue reading
Google – YouTube – Censorship?
The BBC reports that Google’s acquisition of You Tube may not be the advertising bonanza they expected. Should Google lose a major YouTube court case and its share price suffers as a result, the company will have to brace itself … Continue reading
Open source religion
Some years ago I came up with the idea of writing a frivolous book applying economic theory to analyse religions. Of course, work commitments intruded but I thought I’d share some of the ideas. Are there increasing returns to religious … Continue reading
Nobel Prize
Goes to Edmund Phelps. Here is a typically thoughtful analysis of tax rates and labour participation, in an article that warns of the dangers of economists pursuing ideas incompletely and without sufficient evidence. His name didn’t appear on most lists. … Continue reading
Incentives to learn
I read in this morning’s Metro (yes, I admit it) that Boris Johnson is proposing that students be given cash incentives by universities to learn. This, he suggests, would encourage greater efforts on behalf of the students, and also limit … Continue reading
Meritocracy and genes
Mark Thoma invites us to consider whether the it is right that wealth, as a result of genetic factors or luck should be taxed. There are two key issue in the Economist excerpt quoted. Firstly, that the creation of a … Continue reading
The Veil
The debate on the veil continues in England. As a libertarian, I cannot endorse the popularly held view that people should be made to dress one way or another, even if it means covering their entire faces and draping their … Continue reading
Venice Tourist tax
Francisca Kellet writes in the Daily Telegraph about Venice’s proposal to introduce a tourist tax. Given the enormous year-round overcrowding in Venice, I have a better solution: introduce an entry fee to stay on the lagoon. After all, is Venice … Continue reading
Blogging and babysitting
From the BPS Research Digest The researchers found that compared with non-fathers, there was a marked increase in the connective branching between brain cells in the front of the marmoset fathers’ brains. Kozorovitskiy told The Digest that this could lead … Continue reading