Why Miliband’s rent control plan isn’t just some harmless gimmick May 1, 2014 TO DEAL with the problem of escalating rents, Ed Miliband plans to introduce what amounts to a variation of “second generation rent controls” (SGRCs). Under SGRCs, landlords are free to set rent levels at the outset of a tenancy, but are restricted in their ability to raise them during the term. In Miliband’s specific version, [...]
This is how elites die: The establishment bubble has no answer to Ukip May 1, 2014 IT IS time to give up the pretence that Ukip is an anti-establishment party. Clearly, the UK Independence Party is the power behind the British establishment’s throne, its secret master. How else did it persuade bien pensant opinion-formers to coordinate a series of cheap, alienating broadsides on its candidates and policies that have served only [...]
Why making it easier to volunteer would narrow Britain’s gender pay gap May 1, 2014 WILL the Conservatives’ flagship initiative, the Big Society, again occupy a prominent position in the upcoming elections? In deciding, the Tories might like to consult the surprising results of our recent research on volunteer work. We asked the following question: when you work for free to help others in society, does it also increase your [...]
How to narrow the gender pay gap by encouraging volunteering May 1, 2014 WILL the Conservatives’ flagship initiative, the Big Society, again occupy a prominent position in the upcoming elections? In deciding, the Tories might like to consult the surprising results of our recent research on volunteer work. We asked the following question: when you work for free to help others in society, does it also increase your [...]
Why Britain shouldn’t fear a stronger pound April 30, 2014 THE RISING pound is causing some concern. “City squeezed by stronger pound” proclaimed the headline in Monday’s City A.M. – reporting the impact of sterling’s rise on the translation of overseas profits. There have also been worries that a rising pound could stifle the recovery of manufacturing output and exports. So what are the facts? [...]
There’s a screaming silence about the death of individual responsibility April 30, 2014 A VOCAL lobby is busily advocating the need to rebalance the UK economy. But there is a screaming silence around the question of whether we need to rebalance society. What does this mean? It’s the need to raise the level of social capital – the values and ethical worldview that put individual virtue, freedom, responsibility [...]
What Brexit would really mean for financial services April 30, 2014 TWO fallacies are common in the EU debate. One is the “nirvana fallacy”, the idea that, if we leave the EU, we will have optimal policy at home. In financial services, for instance, while many are rightly angry about the European Court of Justice’s rejection of the UK challenge to a EU financial transaction tax [...]
Sport economics: Why the next Ashes are England’s to lose April 29, 2014 THERE are two theories for the relationship between sport and the economy. The first is that prosperity drives sporting performance. The evidence to support this generally comes from Olympic medal tables, which show that the largest and most successful economies win more medals. The second is that sport is one of the few routes out [...]
We do need fresh economic thinking – just not more public spending April 29, 2014 THE ANNUAL Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) conference was held in Toronto earlier this month. Launched in the autumn of 2009, INET was created by George Soros in response to the economic crisis. Mainstream economics certainly bears a heavy responsibility for building an intellectual climate prior to the crash that asserted that the problems [...]
How the Goldilocks recovery will trigger a sharp inflation rise April 29, 2014 THE UK economy is going gangbusters, and has been doing so for about a year. GDP in the first three months of 2014 was up a solid 0.8 per cent on the last three months of 2013, and up a cool 3.1 per cent since the first three months of 2013. Gone now are the [...]
