Sam Bowman is quoted in The Freeman on Britain's student debt problem

Research Director of the Adam Smith Institute, Sam Bowman, was quoted in The Freeman on Britain's growing student debt problem.

The core difference between the British and American systems lies in the terms of repayment. American students typically have to start repaying 6 months after they graduate. Opportunities for loan forgiveness are extremely limited, and loans cannot be discharged via bankruptcy. By contrast, British students don’t have to start repaying until they are earning £21,000 ($36,000) per year. They must then pay 9 percent of their gross income as long as they stay above the threshold. Their outstanding balance is automatically forgiven 30 years after it became eligible for repayment. Also, the loans do not appear on their credit report.

“The thing people worry about with debt is that they won’t be able to pay it back. The way this is structured means that is not a worry ever, and it doesn’t follow you around until your old age,” says Sam Bowman, Research Director at the Adam Smith Institute, a free-market think tank.

Bowman finds it helpful to understand loan repayment as a tax. “You can either think of it as a graduate tax or it’s the best debt in the world,” he says. “It makes sense to think of it as a graduate tax, a specific kind of tax on a specific action that is designed to offset the cost of that action.”

Read the full article here.

Charlotte Bowyer argues against a crackdown on legal highs on Sky News

The Adam Smith Institute's Education Manager - Charlotte Bowyer - debates the Deputy Political Director of the Centre for Social Justice over the benefits and harms of cracking down on legal highs on Sky News.

“Sweet FA – Why foreign player crackdowns hurt English football” is featured in The Telegraph

A new report from the Adam Smith Institute - “Sweet FA – Why foreign player crackdowns hurt English football” - is featured in The Daily Telegraph.

Greg Dyke’s plan to cap the number of foreign players in English football has been denounced by The Adam Smith Institute, which claimed there was “practically no relationship whatsoever” between that and the performance of the England team.

A report by the influential think tank also warned that artificially limiting the amount of overseas talent in the Premier League would harm its clubs’ ability to compete in the Champions League and Europa League.

One of the key recommendations of Football Association chairman Dyke’s commission on English football this summer was a limit on the number of non-European Union players in the English game, which, it was claimed, would increase the number of England-qualified footballers.

The received wisdom has been that a bigger domestic talent pool is the panacea to the national team’s travails at major tournaments, a view directly challenged by research conducted by the Institute’s head of policy, Ben Southwood.

Read the full article here.

The report, written by ASI Head of Policy Ben Southwood, finds that the Football Association’s plan to crack down on foreign players in the Premier League would damage the league’s quality and success in European club competitions, without any benefit to the English national team’s performance.

Read the full report here: “Sweet FA – Why foreign player crackdowns hurt English football”

Sam Bowman argues the Eurozone is facing a lost decade in the City AM Forum

Research Director of the Adam Smith Institute - Sam Bowman - argues that the Eurozone is facing a lost decade in the City AM Forum.

Youth unemployment in Greece is above 50 per cent. All Italian growth in the last 15 years has been wiped out.

And Germany’s economy, previously healthy, shrunk in the second quarter.

Across the Eurozone, unemployment is above 11 per cent, and youth unemployment is above 23 per cent. These problems are likely to persist for many years, with youth unemployment leaving a lasting legacy of depressed earnings.

Europe’s profound supply-side problems, including restrictive labour laws and high taxes, still cannot explain why it slumped in 2011 as the rest of the world began to recover.

The reason is that the European Central Bank (ECB) has persistently undershot its inflation target, putting the Eurozone into a state of perennial near-deflation, with too little demand to get European workers into jobs. Only more inflation will change this.

A lost decade now seems inevitable. It is up to the ECB to decide how bad it will be.

Read both sides of the debate here.

ASI report “Sweet FA – Why foreign player crackdowns hurt English football” is featured on UK Radio talkSPORT

A new report from the Adam Smith Institute, “Sweet FA – Why foreign player crackdowns hurt English football” is discussed on UK Radio talkSPORT. Listen to the programme here.

The report, written by ASI Head of Policy Ben Southwood, finds that the Football Association's plan to crack down on foreign players in the Premier League would damage the league’s quality and success in European club competitions, without any benefit to the English national team’s performance.

Read the full report here: “Sweet FA – Why foreign player crackdowns hurt English football”

ASI Research Director's comments on Germany's shock 0.2% contraction are featured in The Daily Mail

Comments from the Research Director of the Adam Smith Institute, Sam Bowman, regarding Germany's shock 0.2% contraction were featured in The Daily Mail:

Inflation in the eurozone dropped back to 0.6 per cent in July from 0.7 per cent in June, facing the ECB with the spectre of deflation and prompting fresh calls for another round of quantitative easing.

Sam Bowman, research director of the Adam Smith Institute, said Germany's contraction might be a wake-up call to the ECB that it is driving Europe's economies into the ground.

'Tight money is almost entirely to blame for the Eurozone's current problems: as the rest of the world has slowly recovered from the Great Recession with relatively accommodative monetary policy, Europe has sunk back into deep recession,' he said.

He added that the ECB's failure to reach its 2 per cent inflation target had resulted in a 'musical chairs' problem, where there is not enough money circulating in the Eurozone to match people's wage demands, in turn resulting in 'unprecedentedly' high unemployment in many Eurozone countries.

'Once, economists warned that Europe faced a Japan-style "lost decade" of unemployment and economic stagnation. That now seems like wishful thinking: because the ECB has kept money so tight and so much wealth has been lost, the Eurozone is likely to be in extremely bad shape for many years to come,' Bowman said.

'If the ECB was really willing to do "whatever it takes" to reach its inflation target, including quantitative easing, it could bring the Eurozone back to growth. The eurozone has needed easier money for years now; now that Germany does too, it may finally see it.'

Read the full article here.

ASI report “Sweet FA – Why foreign player crackdowns hurt English football” is featured in City AM

The Adam Smith Institute's latest report, “Sweet FA – Why foreign player crackdowns hurt English football” is featured in City AM.

Football Association chairman Greg Dyke proposes limiting imports to English leagues, arguing that more playing time for homegrown youngsters will improve England’s performance.

But a report published today by think tank the Adam Smith Institute found no link between the number of minutes played by native footballers in England, Spain, Germany and Italy and their national team’s world ranking.

Read the article here.

The report, written by ASI Head of Policy Ben Southwood, finds that the Football Association's plan to crack down on foreign players in the Premier League would damage the league’s quality and success in European club competitions, without any benefit to the English national team’s performance.

Read the full report here: “Sweet FA – Why foreign player crackdowns hurt English football”

ASI Report "Sweet FA – Why foreign player crackdowns hurt English football" is featured in the Yorkshire Post

A new Adam Smith Institute report, "Sweet FA – Why foreign player crackdowns hurt English football" is featured twice in the Yorkshire Post as a front-page news story and feature article.

Despite its claim to be “the most watched league in the world” there have long been concerns about its impact on the England team with fewer young, homegrown players getting the chance to play on the big stage.

However, a new report published today by the Adam Smith Institute challenges the view that restricting the number of overseas players would benefit the national game, claiming there is no link between the amount of time home-grown stars play in the Premier League and the performance of the English team.

The study, the first research of its kind, found that the same goes for the other major leagues in Europe — Spain’s La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga and Italy’s Serie A.

It also pours cold water on the FA’s plan to crack down on foreign players in the Premier League, saying it would damage the league’s quality and success in European club competitions.

The report, Sweet FA – Why foreign player crackdowns hurt English football, has been pieced together using Fifa’s world rankings, as well as data recording the number of hours played by English footballers over a period stretching more than 20 years.

Its author, Ben Southwood, head of policy at the economic think-tank, says the findings challenge the idea that “importing” foreign footballers to the UK means English players have fewer opportunities to play for the top clubs.

Read the full feature here.

The report, written by ASI Head of Policy Ben Southwood, finds that the Football Association's plan to crack down on foreign players in the Premier League would damage the league’s quality and success in European club competitions, without any benefit to the English national team’s performance.

Read the full report here: “Sweet FA – Why foreign player crackdowns hurt English football”

ASI report “Sweet FA – Why foreign player crackdowns hurt English football" is featured by the Press Association

The Adam Smith Institue's new report, “Sweet FA – Why foreign player crackdowns hurt English football" was picked up by the Press Association and featured in over 60 regional and local publications.

The Football Association has been urged to research the impact of foreign players on English footballers after a new report claimed they do not harm the national team.

A target of increasing the number of English players in the Premier League from 32% to 45% by 2022 emerged in FA chairman Greg Dyke's England Commission review , which also suggested allowing top clubs to introduce B teams and an overhaul of the work permit system in an attempt to boost the English game.

But a report released by the Adam Smith Institute today claims the success of the Premier League would be " drastically harmed" by a crackdown on foreign players.

It argues that it found little evidence of a link between the total amount of minutes played by English players in the Premier League and the success of the English national team, as measured by Fifa rankings.

The report adds that it can find no similar links in the top divisions of Germany, Italy or Spain, while it also claims it has found that allowing more "foreign talent" into a league corresponds with how well teams from that division are expected to do in European competitions.

A series of calculations was carried out for the research, which considered factors including the number of minutes played by English footballers in the Premier League - plus a similar look at native players in the top division in Spain, Germany and Italy - a nation's performance at World Cups and European Championships and the strength of a nation's domestic teams in European competitions.

The figures account for the number of minutes played by English footballers in the Premier League since it began in 1992/93, while also considering similar data for Spain, Germany and Italy since the 2009/10 season.

It includes information provided by data specialists Opta as well as the author's calculations.

T he paper concluded that the evidence is "not conclusive" and there are many ways the research could be developed to achieve a "more complete picture", including whether young foreign footballers help or hinder their English counterparts in youth academies.

It added: "But for now, the state of the published research suggests foreign players enhance competitiveness and the quality of the league and do not harm the national team.

"The FA must do this extra research or keep the current state of the literature in mind as it sets football policy."

The paper does not offer an alternative view on why England perform worse at international tournaments.

Ben Southwood, author of the paper and head of policy at the Adam Smith Institute, said he had spent between four and five months compiling the report.

He said: "It is widely believed that England's perceived under-performance at recent international competitions owes something to the reduced fraction of minutes English players are playing in the Premier League, but up until now no-one's really studied the question with any kind of rigour.

"My numbers are not final but they suggest there is no real link between the amount of football English players play in the Premier League - or across the top four European Leagues - and English international performance.

"If the reduced quantity of experience is a problem, then it is being balanced out by the massively improved quality - or something else."

The report, written by ASI Head of Policy Ben Southwood, finds that the Football Association's plan to crack down on foreign players in the Premier League would damage the league’s quality and success in European club competitions, without any benefit to the English national team’s performance.

Read the full report: “Sweet FA – Why foreign player crackdowns hurt English football"

Press Release: Foreign player crackdown would do nothing to help England team

A new report released today by the Adam Smith Institute blasts the FA's proposals to crack down on foreign players, finding:

• No link between native play time in the Premier League and performance of English national team
• No link between amount of minutes played by Englishmen ten years ago and performance today
• A strong link between foreign players and Premier League quality

The FA's plan to crack down on foreign players in the Premier League would damage the league's quality and success in European club competitions, without any benefit to the English national team's performance, according to a new study from the Adam Smith Institute, an economic think tank.

In the first research of its kind, there was no link found between the time English players get on the pitch and the performance of the national team.

The report, "Sweet FA - Why foreign player crackdowns hurt English football", found this to be true for performance measured in FIFA points, world ranking, or placing at major championships—i.e. the World Cup and European Championship. This also goes for the other major leagues in Europe—Spain's La Liga, Germany's Bundesliga, and Italy's Serie A.

The report also rejected as baseless the claim that a reduced amount of playing time for English players five or ten years prior affected English international performance.

But the report did find evidence of a strong link between a league's UEFA coefficient and the prevalence of foreign players—leagues with more non-natives are stronger, and stronger leagues have more non-natives.

This suggests that Greg Dyke's scheme to tighten up work permit rules for foreign (or just non-EU) players would harm the English Premier League—the world's most popular and successful league—without any concomitant benefit to the English national team.

Paper author Ben Southwood, Head of Policy at the Adam Smith Institute, said:

"It is widely believed that England's perceived underperformance at recent international competitions owes something to the reduced fraction of minutes English players are playing in the Premier League—but up until now no one's really studied the question with any kind of rigour.

"My numbers are not final but they suggest there is no real link between the amount of football English players play in the Premier League (or across the top four European Leagues) and English international performance.

"If the reduced quantity of experience is a problem, then it is being balanced out by the massively improved quality—or something else".

Read the full report here.

Contact Communications Manager, Kate Andrews, for further comments or to arrange an interview: kate@adamsmith.org | 07584 778207

The Adam Smith Institute is an independent libertarian think tank based in London. It advocates classically liberal public policies to create a richer, freer world.