Has the NHS let us down during the pandemic?

Kristian Niemietz
16 September 2020

Has the NHS let us down during the pandemic?

On 15 September 2020, the Adam Smith Institute hosted a webinar on rationing in healthcare during the pandemic. One of the panellists was the IEA’s Kristian Niemietz. The article below is based on his opening remarks.   If we want to know which countries are coping well with the pandemic, and which ones are struggling, ... Continue reading
Kristian Niemietz
16 September 2020
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Global economic freedom may well have passed its zenith

Alexander C. R. Hammond and Fred McMahon
15 September 2020

Global economic freedom may well have passed its zenith

Last week, the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank, released the 24th edition of its annual Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) report. The publication found that global economic freedom in 2018 (the most recent year data is available) reached an all-time high. Although the United Kingdom's score has steadily declined since its high in 2000 and ... Continue reading
Alexander C. R. Hammond and Fred McMahon
15 September 2020
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IEA Debate: Should we devalue the pound?

John Mills vs. Julian Jessop
11 September 2020

IEA Debate: Should we devalue the pound?

The hit to the UK economy and the public finances from the pandemic and the persistent weakness of both investment and productivity have underlined the importance of finding policies that promote growth. Could engineering a substantial fall in the exchange rate be part of the solution?   YES – says John Mills Why does the ... Continue reading
John Mills vs. Julian Jessop
11 September 2020
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Book review: “The Rich in Public Opinion” by Rainer Zitelmann

Kristian Niemietz
8 September 2020
Society and Culture

Book review: “The Rich in Public Opinion” by Rainer Zitelmann

A common misunderstanding about “wokeness” is that it is not about censorship, or silencing unfashionable opinions, but merely about good manners. The “woke”, in this naïve interpretation, are not trying force a particular ideology on anyone; they are not trying to “cancel” people they disagree with. They just want to stop us from making disparaging, ... Continue reading
Kristian Niemietz
8 September 2020
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Public health organisations fail, because they spread themselves too thinly over too many activities

Christopher Snowdon
5 September 2020

Public health organisations fail, because they spread themselves too thinly over too many activities

If, like me, you celebrated the downfall of the useless, bossy quango Public Health England, you may be unable to shake the fear that it is a pyrrhic victory. Its replacement, the National Institute for Health Protection, might make a better stab at tackling the next viral outbreak, but there is a danger that PHE’s ... Continue reading
Christopher Snowdon
5 September 2020
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Singapore’s “Progressive Wage Model”: an alternative to the National Minimum Wage?

Sarah Ang
4 September 2020

Singapore’s “Progressive Wage Model”: an alternative to the National Minimum Wage?

The coronavirus pandemic has shone a light on the plight of low-paid workers, with a focus on low pay and insecure conditions that they face. The major policy lever for addressing this has for the last two decades been the national minimum wage system. The government has pledged to raise the National Living Wage (NLW) ... Continue reading
Sarah Ang
4 September 2020
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Beware the new technocrats

John Shand
3 September 2020
Society and Culture

Beware the new technocrats

The coronavirus lockdown has brought to the fore a socio-economic divide that in normal times goes often unnoticed. It is not the obvious one between the rich and the poor. Rather it reflects by analogy John Stuart Mill saying that not only should there be no taxation without representation, there should also be no representation ... Continue reading
John Shand
3 September 2020
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There is neither an economic nor a cultural case for a compulsory TV licence fee

Philip Booth
2 September 2020
Economic Theory

There is neither an economic nor a cultural case for a compulsory TV licence fee

The BBC has come under severe criticism recently for the way in which some of its senior figures seem to be keen to ditch the nation’s history, apparently because many of the party pieces at the Last Night of the Proms are anachronistic. As many people who understand the origin of the words of “Rule, ... Continue reading
Philip Booth
2 September 2020
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Scientism and the Coronavirus Pandemic:  A Hayekian View

Mark Pennington
1 September 2020
Economic Theory

Scientism and the Coronavirus Pandemic:  A Hayekian View

The reactions of much of the commentariat in the UK and elsewhere to the policy challenge represented by the coronavirus seem to reflect the polarised state of contemporary political discourse. Some maintain that governments were too slow in responding to the pandemic and that lockdowns when they came should have been more rigorously enforced. Then ... Continue reading
Mark Pennington
1 September 2020
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The relatively large fall in UK GDP partly reflects better data

Julian Jessop
27 August 2020
Economic Theory

The relatively large fall in UK GDP partly reflects better data

There is a lively debate among economists about the ways in which UK statisticians have estimated the impact of Covid-19 and the lockdown on the public sector’s contribution to GDP. This is a relatively arcane topic, but important. As David Smith has put it, “did the official statisticians exaggerate the UK’s coronavirus recession by incorporating ... Continue reading
Julian Jessop
27 August 2020
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