I'm very pleased to see a new book by my friend David Starkie (no, not the TV historian, the transport analyst) called Aviation Markets. It comes in at a pricey £25 but it's a heavyweight item of 250 pages.

Basically, it's a collection of 17 reports that David has done over the last 25 years, including extensive editing and updating. They're organized in thematic sections, and put in context so that you get an understanding of the background to the issue, and can appreciate each paper's wider significance – including the extend to which current policy has been changed as a result of it.

But the main focus is one close to Adam Smith's heart – the role of the market and how economic and political policies help (or more often, hinder) it. Starkie is a great believer in the power of competition to solve the problems that politicians just can't fix. A useful message to everyone involved in transport: and not lost, I would hope, on people who work in or regulate other utility industries.

Buy it here.

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