Adam Smith Institute

This analysis suggests that official economic statistics systematically understate increases in living standards. It makes the case that many statistics, including Gross Domestic Product (GDP), might have been appropriate to the age of mass production, but fail to reflect accurately the new economy which is being created by the application of information technology.

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Inflexible friend examines the likely impact of the governments IR35 proposals to force many self - employed contractors into the tax net of full time employment. Professor Burton points out that all of today's advanced economies are primarily service based. Britain, being no exception to this, is placing future economic success in jeopardy with these proposals, possibly resulting in "the virtual emasculation of the self employment sector of the UK economy".

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Excise duties on alcohol should be lowered and those on spirits should be cut most of all says St Andrews economist Dr Paul Haines. The report examines and challenges Treasury assumptions concerning the way in which consumption of alcohol reacts to price changes. Alcohol consumption doesn't rise indefinitely with increases in prosperity, and attempts to curb alcohol consumption by increases in excise duties will probably fail. Not only that but further increases only lead to an increase in smuggling. The recent rises relate to losses in the Treasury revenue whereas a freeze or reduction to more revenue. Dr Haines proposes a duty of £10 per litre of pure alcohol, an abolishment of the duty and VAT on Commonwealth importation of alcohol. We should have lower duties and equal duties.

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"In an ideal economy, government would decide if it wished to encourage saving, the extent to which it wished to do so, and the measures most likely to bring positive results." No Limit explores our attitude to saving, arguing that "Tax concessions which encourage saving have not been planned as part of a systematic and rational approach."

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The principle of Private Financial Initiate (PFI) represents the best hope for generating funding for capital projects, particularly in Britain’s inadequate transport infrastructure. Dr Eamonn Butler and Allan Stewart MP argue that allowing the private sector to be as innovative as possible with respect too public sector challenges should be the long-term objective of Whitehall, transforming the ways in which the public sector achieves its goals.

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