Going cashless is changing the way we interact with each other I’ve been taking a lot of Ubers recently. The company has now expanded into Edinburgh, and, given that the cars turn up quickly and …
The gig economy and the death of tipping
Category: Blog
Why modern monetary policy doesn’t work – the models it uses are horribly out of date
The Bank of England needs to update its models of how the economy works There’s a note just out from the Bank of England that gives a neat clue into just why modern monetary policy …
We should give “education vouchers” for parents to spend on schools as they wish
Parents could send their children wherever they wanted It has always been a mild mystery to me why private schools cling so desperately to their charitable status. It can’t save them particularly large amounts of …
The trouble with using bond yields to calculate pension fund liabilities
Ex-pensions minister Ros Altmann agrees: why just use bond yields? An interesting piece in the FT today. We have written time and time again about the problems with the way defined-benefit pension funds calculate their …
Philip Hammond’s looking for market failure – he’ll find it in the fund management sector
Where will Hammond spot market failure next? I wrote in this week’s MoneyWeek editor’s letter that Philip Hammond’s abolition of letting fees for tenants should be seen as the start of this government’s intention to …
Brexit: how it is saving the Union
Scotland: stronger as part of the UK If you want to save the Union, vote Brexit. I wrote this here just before the June referendum on Britain’s EU membership. It seemed an odd thing to …
The four freedoms: not set in stone, not universally adhered to, and not necessary for single market access
Liechtenstein restricted free movement of people until 1998 and Iceland introduced capital controls after the financial crisis. Of the many myths about the EU, the one that seems to be most entrenched in the most …
Brexit won’t drive tech companies out of Britain
Tech workers aren’t going to up sticks and leave I went on Channel 4 News last night to talk about the future of tech companies in a post-Brexit Britain. The premise of the piece was …
UK regions should issue their own work permits after Brexit
UK regions should be allowed to recruit skilled migrants Should UK regions be able to offer region-specific work permits if free movement from the EU goes after Brexit? This is a really interesting question – …
Trump didn’t so much win the US election as Clinton lost it
Clinton: loser Is there really a revolution under way in the US? Look at the voting numbers on the election and the argument isn’t as easy to make as you might think. You can divide …