I’ve had a few people suggest that I should write a blog on the economics of Higher Education, and the impact of University expansion. I am guessing that this reflects the age of my readership – our children are filling in UCAS forms, and buying IKEA starter sets of crockery in preparation of moving out … Read more
Over the last few years I have had a few arguments with people on social media. You might have spotted this. I might even have politely explained to you why I am right, and you are foolish. Over and over again I have had the same, odd experience. Someone has angrily told me that they … Read more
I hope that people aren’t getting too bored with discussions of inequality, because this is another blog which touches on 2 familiar themes; how income is distributed; and how governments produce the statistics that we use to inform political and economic debates. There is a common assumption that over last few decades the economic performance … Read more
I have written previously about why the current system for measuring unemployment might not giving us an accurate picture: Unemployments rising in the Chigley End of Town People will have read in the media that UK unemployment is at it’s lowest since the 1970s. This from the BBC is typical: I thought that … Read more
Another micro-blog, this time on PFI, and a not very hot take on Carillion and Capita. I was going to avoid talking about the collapse of Carillion. I get a bit frustrated talking about PFI because lots of people strongly dislike it without knowing much about it, which makes for a less than fun debate. … Read more
I was a Miner, I was a Banker/I was a Quantitative Analyst/Between the Wars/I played at Glastonbury/In time of austerity A bit of a follow up from last weeks look at the ways property wealth, property tax and pension wealth interact and how monetary policy can change how wealth is re-distributed. While I was writing … Read more
Last month I wrote about attitudes to inequality specifically why I think that recent headlines about Rampant Inequality are way off the mark. The belief that we live in an era of great inequality is so prevalent that a lot of people reacted with disbelief when I wrote that wealth inequality in the UK was … Read more
I write my blog in WordPress, and I can check out how many reads I get for every blog. Sometimes you get surprising insights – there is someone in Canada who binge reads my blog every few months for eample. Breezy businessy blogs written from a vaguely leftish perspective are popular, some subjects less … Read more
As a follow up to yesterday’s blog I wanted to say a tiny bit more about Laffer curves and whether or not they work in the real world. I feel that I dismissed a huge idea in modern economics without giving it time of day, but I didn’t want the whole blog to be … Read more
In case anyone had missed it we live in a 24/7 media culture. Politicians rise and fall based on their ability to shape or react to a continuous churn of news. This has created a bias for action not ideas. Tough new measures rather than well thought out policies. Clampdowns on pretty much everything. An … Read more