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Limits to agency 27 Aug 2013 | 05:52 pm
Do the poor lack free will? I ask because of a Twitter argument I've had with Peter Risdon. I said that in criticizing the poor for their junk food diet, Jamie Oliver was blaming the victim. Peter rep...
HS2: how to decide 26 Aug 2013 | 06:19 pm
Last night John van Reenen tweeted that the controversy about HS2 shows that we need a better way of making decisions about big infrastructure projects. He's right. Economists have known the answer he...
Cheryl Cole & the decline of liberalism 25 Aug 2013 | 05:56 pm
In achieving the unlikely feat of making her arse look unattractive, Cheryl Cole has drawn our attention to one of the most significant cultural changes of recent years - namely, the change in attitud...
Labour's cost of living problem 24 Aug 2013 | 04:11 pm
Hopi Sen says he's a "cost of living sceptic". He'll not thank me for saying so, but I agree. First,let's be clear way real wages have fallen. Duncan's right to say that inflation is not to blame, si...
Demand curves 23 Aug 2013 | 06:12 pm
My post on rent control set me wondering: is there really such a thing as a downward-sloping demand curve for housing? I ask because of simple introspection. If house prices were to fall sharply, I w...
Agents of freedom 22 Aug 2013 | 06:19 pm
To those of us whose political consciousness was shaped in the 70s and 80s, reaction to the detention of David Miranda has been a little puzzling. What I mean is that back then, Conservatives dominate...
A case for rent control? 21 Aug 2013 | 02:54 pm
Should we introduce rent controls? Jack Dromey seems a little confused, being less enthusiastic about them on today's Today Programme than he was in private. There's a good reason for his confusion. B...
Gender, competition & boardrooms 16 Aug 2013 | 06:10 pm
Stuart Wheeler's claim that women are not competitive enough to get into company boardrooms has led to accusations of sexism. Such moralistic bleating, however, distracts us from some interesting issu...
Two nations 15 Aug 2013 | 03:30 pm
There's one aspect of yesterday's labour market data that hasn't had the attention it deserves - namely, the big long-run change in the occuaptional structure of the labour market. The figures show th...
On intergenerational mobility 7 Aug 2013 | 05:42 pm
Luke Johnson in the FT is scathing about the sons of rich men: The children of self-made parents almost never possess the same level of ambition or capacity for enterprise. Consequently family fortune...
