There's a reason we invented farming you know

The season for trooping off into the forests to pick mushrooms is upon us. And the signs telling people that they will be prosecuted if they do so are even now being nailed up. For there really is a reason that we invented farming, along with that concept of private property, all those millennia ago. That reason being something that Garrett Hardin made rather a fuss of and Elinor Ostrom gained her well deserved Nobel for.

Marxian access to a common resource only works up to a point:

Twenty years ago, no commercial fungi foraging was carried out in Britain. By 2013 it had risen to such a scale that there were 20 successful prosecutions for illegal fungi-picking in Epping Forest alone, with one person being caught with 20 sacks of mushrooms. Those found guilty were fined sums of around £200.

But many foragers insist that their handiwork does no harm. Carried out in a responsible manner, it causes no damage. It is the equivalent of the blackberry gathering that many families enjoy at this time of year, they argue.

But this is rejected by fungi expert Professor Lynne Boddy, of Cardiff University. “People say picking fungi is just like picking blackberries off a bush. But it is not,” she said. “Plants like the blackberry bush evolved to produce fruit that contain their seeds, which birds and animals eat and transmit through their droppings. These berries exist to spread seeds.”

By contrast, most fungi transmit their spores in the wind.

Hardin made the more basic point - as demand rises on such a common, open, resource we end up with a problem. With no limitation upon who may take what or how much the resource will be exploited beyond its capacity to regenerate.

Take, for example, fisheries. When technology is simply a line and a hook, then all who wish can fish the seas. When technology is vast nets which scoop up everything then some limitations must be placed upon extraction. The economic imperative for each individual player is to go get some while there is some left. This leaves none to regenerate for the next season. 

It doesn't matter what the resource is. When demand is low then that Marxist, open for all to fill their boots, access is just fine. When demand starts to meet the limits of what the resource can provide then some form of regulation is necessary. Hardin tells us that we must either have private property or government regulation - what he called capitalist or socialist methods of resource management.

Either works, dependent upon the specific resource we need to manage.

Ostrom proved that a third possibility exists- communal management. Voluntary  cooperation that is - and it does work, up to a certain size. When the group doing the managing, and self-limiting extraction, rises above a couple of thousand people then that system to breaks down. The group is too large to be self-regulating and we are back in the economics of the hunter gatherer and the stripping of the resource before someone else comes along.

Going off foraging is fun - the mushroom hunt is a central part of the folk and family experience in many parts of central Europe, just as the blackberry thing is in rural England. But all depends upon the volume of people descending to do it and the volume they wish to take when they do.

There really is a reason we invented this exclusionary clause in private property and farming. Simply because there's too many of us to be able to maintain that open access to that common resource. If we do try to maintain that Marxist access then the resource will disappear. Just as the cod did from the Grand Banks.

Sadly, Sarah Wollaston seems not to understand the basics here

Sarah Wollaston may indeed be a GP as well as an MP. But she seems not to have grasped the first and most basic thing about the relationship between economic and health inequality:

In her first speech as prime minister, Theresa May promised to tackle the nine-year gap in life expectancy between rich and poor, placing this at the top of her list of burning injustices. This yawning inequality has defeated successive governments, and the gap is even wider between rich and poor for years lived in good health. Closing it will require action across areas such as poverty, housing and education, as well as those more conventionally thought of as affecting health. May will need to start early and look far beyond the short-term political cycle for results.

In that little image above the point is made that analysis is a part of public health. why is such and such happening? This is a larger point as well of course, only when we have worked out what is happening and why can we even dream of trying to do something about whatever it is. Or even decide whether to do something.

And here, looking at lifespans and incomes there's one hugely important point being missed.

It's entirely true that the rich generally live longer than the poor. But why is this? Some part of it is undoubtedly that better diets, less self-destructive behaviour, leads to a long life. But is is also true that chronic illness leads to poverty.

We cannot thus insist that reducing economic inequality will equalise lifespans - simply because it is unequal lifespans and health which is one of the causes of income inequality.

As is so often true both processes are going on at the same time. And until the public health advocates start admitting that we should pay very little attention to them. Simply because they're not being serious.

Ireland might bring in citizenship by investment

The recent decision by the UK to leave the EU gives it the opportunity to make major reductions in its Corporation Tax.  It could cause problems for Ireland if the UK were to match its 12.5%, and even more if it were to lower it as the ASI has recommended, first to 6.25% and then to zero.  Investment that presently goes to Ireland might head for the UK instead.

Ireland could counter this by introducing citizenship by investment, as several other countries do. Presently Irish citizenship is only available to those with an Irish grandparent, or to those with a 5-year residency qualification, or 3 years with an Irish spouse or civil partner.  Residency with the intention to remain resident is also required.

Ireland could extend this by offering fast-track citizenship to those prepared to invest substantial sums in the Irish economy, or to create a significant number of Irish Jobs.  By doing so, Ireland would be emulating several countries worldwide which offer citizenship in return for investment.

The US awards 10,000 green cards annually (designated EB-5) to those who invest $1m, or $0.5m in a designated area of high unemployment, and who create at least 10 US jobs.  Several EU members have similar schemes.  Among the most accessible are Malta and Cyprus.  Malta offers 1,800 visas annually to those who invest €1.15m (of which €350,000 must be in property and €150,000 in government bonds), with a requirement to be at least a part-time resident.  An EU passport can be issued with a year.  Cyprus requires an investment of €2.5m and can fast-track a passport inside 3 months.

Other EU countries that do this include Austria and Bulgaria.  Worldwide one of the most successful second passports is offered by St Kitts and Nevis.  Those who contribute $295,000 to help their industry diversify from sugar, or who invest $500,000 in property, can secure a passport without any residency requirement.

The Maltese, Cypriot, Austrian and Bulgarian options all offer EU passports allowing free movement to live and work anywhere in the EU, and an Irish passport would do the same.  This would make it an attractive option, especially given that English is its main language.

While the Adam Smith Institute, unlike the European Union, does not make a habit of intruding on the sovereignty of independent nations, it does suggest that the government of Ireland might at least investigate the possibility of instituting a citizenship by investment programme.  It would create investment and employment to counter-balance any problems caused by the UK's new-found ability to make itself more attractive

Vaping isn't perfectly safe - and?

The latest piece of medical hysteria about vaping has arrived - with the finding that the consumption of a stimulant restricts the aorta. This apparently is sufficient to mean that vaping should be banned, or at least restricted, and therefore many more people should die from smoking:

Vaping could be as bad for the heart as smoking cigarettes, a new study suggests. 

The findings triggered warnings that electronic cigarettes may be “far more dangerous” than was thought.

Trials found that a typical session using a device caused similar effects to the main heart artery as smoking a cigarette.

This is not in fact a stunning finding. Stimulants tend to do this:

Researchers said a a typical vaping session had a similar impact on stiffness of the aorta - the main artery into the heart - as smoking one regular cigarette.

Lead researcher Prof Charalambos Vlachopoulos, from the University of Athens Medical School said: "We measured aortic stiffness. If the aorta is stiff you multiply your risk of dying, either from heart diseases or from other causes.”

Nicotine is a stimulant, stimulants tend to do this, nicotine will do this. 

As our friends at the IEA have pointed out, this isn't the point about vaping anyway. We have a stimulant that large numbers of people enjoy, a stimulant which is legal and a stimulant which will kill some large percentage of those who partake of it. Vaping is a safer, not safe, manner of taking that stimulant.

Of course it should be legal. In fact, given the greater safety it should be subsidised in theory.

It's worth noting that those nicotine patches, which we do subsidise through prescriptions, have very much the same effect on the heart. Because they're a nicotine delivery system and nicotine is a stimulant.....

In defence of Richard Branson’s honour

John McDonnell has, as is not unprecedented, suggested introducing a bad policy. As the drama surrounding ‘Traingate’ continues unfolded, McDonnell responded to Richard Branson’s intervention by floating the idea of stripping him of his knighthood.

Writing in the Sunday Mirror, McDonnell described Branson as a “tax exile who thinks he can try and intervene and undermine our democracy”, and went on to write that:

“But the whole purpose of the honours system is undermined when the rich and the powerful can collect their gongs without giving anything back. It’s even worse when tax exiles are given honours.

[…]

And tax exiles should not be allowed to keep the privilege of an honour or a title. It should be a simple choice for the mega-rich. Run off to tax exile if you want. But you leave your titles and your honours behind when you go.”

There are a few things wrong with this. It is certainly not the case that Branson has given nothing back. His tax arrangements do not invalidate his contributions. And he has every right to “intervene” in “our democracy”.

It is true that Branson is a “tax exile”. He is a resident in the British Virgin Islands and pays no income tax. However, this is perfectly legal and McDonnell is not accusing him of tax evasion. Virgin Group, the conglomerate that owns the various Virgin enterprises, does pay millions of pounds in UK tax, as do many of its subsidiaries.

Virgin Group employs around 50,000 people worldwide, many of them in the UK. Subsidiaries of Virgin, such as Virgin Mobile and Virgin Money, provide a plethora of services to millions of people in the UK. In fact, since the 1970s Virgin has operated in the music, aviation, and telecoms industries before selling its share in its subsidiaries. Many of these, such as Virgin Media and Virgin Records, still exist today under different ownership. Virgin, and Branson personally, have also made significant contributions to charitable causes.

Even if Branson’s tax status is problematic, that doesn’t trump these significant contributions. Even if the law is in need of reform, that doesn’t make what Branson is doing especially objectionable. People are not, and should not be, under an obligation to pay as much tax as possible, above and beyond what is required by law.

As for Branson’s “intervention”, I’m not going to comment in detail on Traingate. However, regardless of the rights and wrongs of the situation, as someone with a stake in businesses based in this country, Branson has every right to “intervene”. And, in any case, ignoring the opinion of everyone who is not resident in the UK is a horribly insular vision. This applies just as much to Branson’s “interventions” on matters such as the EU Referendum and drugs policy, and equally to those of other informed parties.

McDonnell also succeeds in the muddying the waters by mentioning Sir Philip Green’s tax avoidance. Whether or not Green is at fault over the BHS pension deficit, it is a separate issue from his tax affairs. His conduct, and whether it warrants the loss of his knighthood, should be judged without reference to tax.

Stripping legal tax avoiders of honours sets a bad precedent. Does minimising your tax bill invalidate job creation, providing services to millions, sporting achievements, public service, or community work? Or would McDonnell only strip honours from people the Labour leadership dislikes? The idea that your “contribution” can only be measured by, or trumped by, the amount of tax you pay is dangerous and ignores the fact that the state is not identical with society.

Five things to know about the EU's Apple tax ruling

This week, the European Commission ruled that Ireland provided State Aid to Apple through preferential tax rules. Unsurprisingly this has brought corporation tax rules into the spotlight, but there are a number of points about this particular case that many commentators have missed so far. Here are the key points:

1. Nothing has been proved (yet)

The EU Commission has yet to publicly show proof of any special deal between Apple and the Irish government. As such, we cannot judge its claims until its evidence is published. Central to the Commission’s claim that Ireland has provided a special “sweetheart deal” to Apple are two rulings by Ireland’s national tax authority, the Revenue Commissioners, which stated that Apple was in compliance with Irish tax rules.

However, it is very common for companies to seek clarification from tax authorities in order to ensure that they are keeping on the right side of the law, especially when dealing with new tax structures. A statement of compliance is not State Aid. While the Commission concedes this, its main argument is that Revenue found an internal profit allocating structure that has “no factual or economic justification” to be legal – and this amounted to State Aid.

So far, the Commission has issued a finding without releasing its evidence publicly, nor its methodology to coming to such a conclusion. The Commission has not provided any evidence of a deal, nor has it provided any evidence of State Aid. Its argument to date boils down to the Revenue providing Apple with a letter of comfort, and the Commission disagreeing with Revenue’s rationale.

2. Is this even a special deal?

Typically, for this to constitute State Aid under European Competition Law, the Commission would have to show that this is a special deal for Apple, within certain parameters. The fact that Apple was utilizing a uniqueness in Ireland’s tax law does not equal state aid. The uniqueness in question is that Irish tax rules state that non-resident companies are only charged Irish corporation tax on the profits attributable to Irish operations, and therefore, in the words of the Revenue Commissioners, “[t]he profits of non-resident companies that are not generated by their Irish branches – such as profits from technology, design and marketing that are generated outside Ireland – cannot be charged with Irish tax under Irish tax law”.

If this option is available to any non-resident company, it is a legitimate feature of Irish tax law as opposed to specific state aid. Even if Apple was the first and only company to do so, this would merely be taking advantage of a tax loophole – not State Aid.

The Office of the Revenue Commissioners has publicly confirmed that Apple has paid all tax due, and that there was no departure from Irish Tax Law in its treatment of Apple, nor was there any preference given to Apple in its application of the law.

It therefore looks to be unlikely that there was any special deal, but rather this is the case of Apple taking advantage of Irish tax rules, and the national tax authority merely confirming that what they were doing was legal.

3. The European Commission is being deeply political

The Commission stated on 31 August that Ireland is free to spend the €13bn of uncollected taxes how Ireland wishes. This, while being in direct contravention to European fiscal principles (which state that windfalls should be allocated to national debt reduction), was also political act designed to undermine the Irish government's reaction domestically.

The Irish government is currently a minority government composed of Fine Gael (a centrist Christian Democratic party) and mostly left-of-centre populist Independent MPs. The Commission’s statement could foment further unease domestically by providing pressure to the populist Independents not to support a cabinet decision to appeal the finding, which has potential to collapse the government. It is naturally very much within the Commission’s interests not to be challenged on this, and it appears that the Commission’s statement was designed to weaken the government’s political freedom to challenge it.

4. …and it was about more than just Ireland’s lax tax laws

The finding was a political warning shot against US companies keeping money effectively stateless until such a time as they can be brought to shore in the US. The EU has been pressuring US authorities over this mostly-untaxed money for years in its fight against tax avoidance (as opposed to evasion). This is more than about competitive Irish tax policies.

Companies, which naturally don’t want to pay punitive US corporate tax rates, have been keeping money offshore in the hope that the US will undertake substantial corporate tax reform. US firms have amassed a sizeable amount of money offshore, thought to be in the trillions of dollars.

American policymakers will therefore be none-to-keen about Europe making a grab for their rainy day fund. Indeed, the US Department of Treasury released a damning statement, just before the publication of the EU Commission’s decision, noting that the Commission’s Apple investigation went beyond regular “enforcement of competition and state aid law”.

5. It is fundamentally a question of sovereignty

Irish tax policy is and ought to be the sole business of the Irish government. Any intrusion into this by the EU should be resisted strongly unless it can be shown there was very specific preferential treatment that was more akin to a subsidy than a true feature of the tax system.

At the very fundamental level, unless there is a deal catered specifically to Apple, this amounts to a Commission overreach into national tax policy. Tax policy, as set out in European Law, is the sole competence of the Member States. If it becomes a case where the EU may declare tax law features “State Aid”, it sets a dangerous precedence for EU intervention in an area that should be the sole remit of national governments.

Ireland’s economic strategy is based on its competitive corporation tax regime. It is what fundamentally transformed the poorest country in Western Europe to one of the richest in the world in less than two decades. Ireland should therefore appeal this decision to the European Court of Justice, as a modest windfall should not be allowed to alter its successful strategy. Thankfully the main governing party, Fine Gael, recognises this. Let’s hope the populists do too.

Cillian Fleming is based in Dublin. These remarks have been written in a personal capacity and do not reflect the views of his employer.

Well spotted but this is how it's supposed to work

Interest rates are down again, the return to saving is ever lower. As a result people are saving less. So, yes, this is entirely true:

Record low interest rates, falling consumer prices and high employment levels have caused the largest collapse on record in Britain’s saving habits.

A monthly report from GfK shows that people’s desire to save money plummeted in August, dropping 16 points from July, in the same month that the Bank of England cut interest rates to a record low of 0.25 per cent.

This was the sharpest month-on-month fall in the survey’s history of conducting a savings index, which began in 1996.

The Times then headlines this as people being "Spendthrift". Which is really rather unkind. Because the very point of the cut in interest rates is to stop people saving and to get them our there going spend, spend, spend.

There's something called the paradox of thrift. When people save more this reduces demand in the economy. This slows down, in the short term at least, the growth of the economy. This then leads to people having less to save and so savings fall.

The solution, at least one and generally accepted one, to this is that when there's not enough demand in the economy cut interest rates to dissuade people from saving. This increases spending and gets the economy growing again.

Quite how valid this all is is up to you to decide. But to call people spendthrift just because they're doing what the Bank of England has deliberately changed policy to encourage them to do seems a bit off to us.

Scrapping the human rights act doesn't mean scrapping human rights

As the Justice Secretary announced her intention to push ahead with plans to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights, social media was again whipped up into a frenzy of fear. The Human Rights Act was trending on Twitter with thousands of people claiming that scrapping the Human Rights Act would result in a curtailment of our civil liberties.

Such a claim is ludicrous for a number of reasons. For example, it ignores the fact that the English common law has developed over the centuries and has its foundation on the respect for life, liberty, and freedom. Such concepts are the golden thread which runs through English law and ensures and protects our basic human rights. Moreover, although the UK constitutional system recognises Parliamentary Supremacy, the remarks of former members of the judiciary- who speak more candidly once they retire- suggests that the law courts would be unwilling to enforce laws which run contrary to the respect for life, liberty, and freedom.

For example, former members of the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords have remarked that if Parliament enacted a law criminalising the marriage of white people to black people, or Christians to members of other religions, then they could not apply it. On a similar note, many former judges expressed the same view in regard to laws requiring members of the public to carry ID cards at all times. As a result, the judiciary has acted and will continue to act as a guardian of our rights and will protect those in this country from the more draconian measures of the State.

Furthermore, it would appear that successive governments have been more than willing to depart from the principles of the Human Rights Act and to curtail our civil liberties, all in the name of national security. For example, the Labour Government under Tony Blair had intended for the Terrorism Act 2006 to enable the police to detain suspected terrorists for up to 90 days without charge. Thankfully, such a move was opposed by Parliament who rightly argued that it was an unjustifiable retreat from habeas corpus. Therefore, we see that it was Parliament- actuated by the desire to follow a fundamental tenet of the English common law that thwarted the Government’s attempt to enact oppressive legislation. 

Not only has the Human Rights Act often been superfluous, it is also a poor guarantor of our freedom and liberty. This is down to two main reasons. First, it has no real teeth as although the Act requires that Parliament enact legislation which is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, if a court finds that a law is incompatible, the only power that the judiciary has is to declare that the legislation is incompatible- this has no legal effect and so the offending legislation will only be changed if Parliament chooses to do so. Its second weakness is that it is still simply an Act of Parliament. As a result- and as the Justice Secretary’s plans demonstrate- if the Government doesn’t like certain aspects of it then it will be repealed.

In addition, the Human Rights Act has actually diminished certain fundamental rights in the UK- which has not necessarily been the case when other countries have incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into their own jurisdictions. This is because in the majority of European countries, if a human rights case is brought before a court, reference must be paid to the Bill of Rights enshrined in their constitution rather than the European Convention on Human Rights or any other international treaty.

This was not the case in the UK with the Human Rights Act. The UK, which does not have a constitution codified in a single document, incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law and instructed British judges to simply follow the precedents of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The Court in Strasbourg has often favoured certain Articles of the Convention at the expense of others, and has stretched their meanings so that they no longer reflect their original definition.

This is particularly true with Article 8 which is supposed to protect the right to a private and family life. However, as Lord Sumption rightly pointed out

“This perfectly straightforward provision was originally devised as a protection against the surveillance state by totalitarian governments. But in the hands of the Strasbourg court it has been extended to cover the legal status of illegitimate children, immigration and deportation, extradition, aspects of criminal sentencing, abortion, homosexuality, assisted suicide, child abduction, the law of landlord and tenant, and a great deal else besides. None of these extensions are warranted by the express language of the Convention.”

As a result, Article 8 has often been used not to protect the fundamental right to a private and family life, but rather to undermine freedom of speech, conscience, and expression.
Therefore, scrapping the Human Rights Act and replacing it with a British Bill of Rights could actually strengthen the protection of fundamental human rights in this country. It will be challenging to get right, but, broadly speaking, a British Bill of Rights would have to ensure that the protection of individual freedom and liberty is at its core. It should also confer real power to the judiciary to enable them to strike down any legislation that is contrary to the Bill of Rights. Furthermore, it should also have special status so that it cannot simply be repealed or changed on the whim of Parliament. 

As a result, far from diminishing our human rights, replacing the Human Rights Act with a Bill of Rights would actually strengthen their protection.

Brussels’s treatment of Apple justifies Brexit

The European Commission’s ruling on Apple, and its €13 billion bill for back-taxes, raises some complex issues of tax law.

But the political issue is quite simple; it shows that those of us who argued for Brexit on constitutional grounds, that the EU had become an all-powerful super-state, were quite right.

First, the claim that tax is a national issue, for national governments and parliaments to decide on, is now entirely exploded.  A question of how Ireland operates its own tax system has been over-turned by the EU’s Commission, making it clear that no EU member country has control over its taxation.

We who work in tax have known for years that claims of national sovereignty over tax were nonsense; I was writing about the EU’s control over its members’ tax policy nearly fifteen years ago; but it is now clear to everyone.

Second, this wasn’t a question of allocating taxing rights between different EU countries, which possibly could have been argued to be a reasonable consequence of being within the “European Club”.  This was purely an internal Irish matter, but despite there being no EU dimension the EU Commission still intervened.

There was no other EU tax at stake in this ruling, and no other EU country was affected; no other EU country had lost tax because of Ireland’s deal with Apple and no other European country can charge Apple any more tax as a result of this ruling.  This was purely an internal matter for Ireland’s tax authority (or possibly the source of a future row between Ireland and the USA).

The implication is clear; the EU is no longer about promoting co-operation and resolving disputes between its sovereign Member States; it is a supranational body that lays down rules about how its members are to behave.

Third, the action Ireland must take in consequence of the EU’s ruling also demonstrates that supranational supremacy.

If the EU was a club of sovereign member countries, as many europhiles often imply, then Ireland would be fined for breaking the rules and that would be the end of the matter.

But that is not what has happened.  Instead, Apple must pay the additional “tax”.  This means that Ireland’s tax law has been set aside, the decisions of its tax authority has been over-ruled, and instead of the tax due under Irish law, the EU Commission has imposed the tax bill that it thinks should have been due.

In constitutional terms, Ireland has been treated like a misbehaving local council that has acted ultra vires, exceeded its authority.

And if Apple objects, the Irish courts will be in the dubious position of enforcing a tax bill that, under Irish tax law, should not be due.

As to the more complex legal matters, the EU Commission’s ruling has made rather a hole in the international tax system.  It has effectively said that because one branch of the Apple subsidiary’s operations was in Ireland, all the activities of that company should be taxable there.  That is a complete contradiction to over a hundred years of international tax.

The principle has always been that a company can have different branches in different countries, and that each branch has its profits taxed in the country where it operates.  When a UK company opens a branch in Paris, the profits of the Paris branch are taxable in France, but that does not make the company’s entire worldwide profits taxable there.  The EU Commission has torn that up, and has done so without putting any properly explained alternative position in place.

There will be much more written on Apple over the next few days, but one point is clear; for anyone who has any belief in any form of national sovereignty, the Apple affair shows that Brexit was the right decision.

Flash Boys aren't rigging the market

Michael Lewis is a great storyteller. This is probably why he's the on economics journalist to have had three of his books made into Oscar nominated movies. He has a real knack for turning wonky topics like Credit Default Swaps and the Eurozone debt crisis into simple, compelling stories. But as Tyler Cowen warns us, we should be suspicious of simple stories.

That's certainly the case with his recent(ish) best seller Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt, it looks at the relatively new phenomenon of algorithmic high-frequency trading. Lewis takes a dim view of the practice, seeing it as little more than an exercise in rent-seeking. His big concern was that High Frequency Traders were providing very little in the way of societal benefit, but were competing in a zero-sum game for rents. According to Lewis, this competition for rents had become an incredibly costly arms race. He points to firms spending hundreds of millions to build underground cable networks between stock exchanges with the not-so-lofty aim of shaving milliseconds off data connections between New York and Chicago.

What are the rents on offer? Lewis was worried about HFT firms being able to buy faster direct access to exchange quotation data. HFT firms could then use this data to predict changes in the data that most normal trading firms typically use to price trades. Whenever a discrepancy arises between the two, HFT firms can make risk-free trades - easy money. If that's the case, then there's a risk that firms will engage in socially costly arms races, buying faster connections at great prices, while providing little in the way of societal benefit. This has prompted many to call for increased regulation and even financial transaction taxes to deter any arms race. A sort of Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty for finance.

Whether we need new taxes or regulations is ultimately an empirical question. A new paper from the University of California, Berkeley suggests that the answer is no. Robert Bartlett and Justin McCrary looked at a massive sample of time-stamped trades representing around $4tn in value over a whole month. Analysing that data they found that of the $4tn traded liquidity providers would have only saved around $11m had they switched from the standard data everyone uses to the faster direct access. In other words, it's just not worth it to engage in these expensive arms races that Lewis worries about.  It seems that the controversial rent seeking strategies described in Flash Boys are a thing of the past. 

As my colleague Ben Southwood points out. Once you look past Michael Lewis' unfounded fears about arms races, HFT firms are providing a social good. Attempts at regulating them ended up hurting retail investors and research from the ECB suggest they facilitate price discovery especially at times when markets are especially volatile.