IEA Blog

The gut reaction to the current financial crisis is that we need more and better regulation. Few understand that regulation … Continue reading “The financial crisis: more transparency, less regulation”

If you are a company, you have to include pensions liabilities as a debt in your accounts. However, governments, while … Continue reading “Are Western governments heading for bankruptcy?”

I have written on this blog about some of the logical flaws associated with ‘relative poverty’, arguing that even if … Continue reading “How relative poverty statistics can be manipulated”

One of the most noteworthy elements of the 2008 Pre-Budget Report was the planned increase in income tax rates to 45% for … Continue reading “The Pre-Budget Report: will Atlas shrug?”

Yesterday it was announced that the Greater London Authority (GLA) is to create 50,000 ‘affordable’ homes. But do such schemes … Continue reading “Can we afford ‘affordable’ housing?”

The newspapers have been full of reports recently about the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer summoning senior … Continue reading “Does competition law really do much good?”

Without wishing to trivialise the former, there are eerie similarities between the tragic case of Baby P and the failure … Continue reading “Why regulation fails: Baby P and Northern Rock”

In each of the last two weeks the IEA has hosted panel discussions in front of packed houses. Last week the … Continue reading “Today’s big problems can only be solved with free-market economics”

On Monday this week, the New Policy Institute released a report called Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion in Scotland 2008, … Continue reading “What happened to poverty in Scotland?”