At an interview a few years back I was asked if I would give cash to someone, or buy a gift. The traditional economics answer is of course to stump up the dosh, uless you can buy a gift that the recipient would have bought anyway, but that requires extremely rare powers of insight (or […]
I had imagined that becoming a father during an Ashes series held in Australia would make the night feeds a bit more bearable. But England’s performances have been has much pain to the eyes as Baby Boot’s screams are to my ears. At least late this morning, there was an opportunity to watch an absolutely […]
An oft-repeated argument against Government intervention is that it can have unintended consequences that often contradict the original intention. An example would be how the mandatory wearing of seatbelts encourages drivers to behave more recklessly and increase accident rates (though this particular example is readily becoming an economics urban myth).
From the BBC yesterday comes a story […]
A new study on the World Distribution of household wealth has been published by the UN University.
The research finds that assets $2,200 per adult placed a household in the top half of the world wealth distribution in the year 2000. To be among the richest 10% of adults in the world required $61,000 in assets, […]
The former editor of the Financial Times, Andrew Gowers, releases a report on the structure of the UK’s intellectual property framework today. One issue under discussion is the extension of copyright terms to 95 years from 50. Lawrence Lessig outlines why this extension is irrelevant from an economic perspective.
The debate will replay the arguments over […]
