The Adam Smith Institute has teamed up with MORI to produce this comprehensive survey of the attitudes and aspirations of the 16-21 year olds who come of age at the turn of the millenium.
Read it here.
Capital Punishment
In Capital Punishment, published in 1998, Dr Barry Bracewell-Milnes argues that capital gains tax should only be levied on predictable and predetermined gains and the tax on unpredictable gains does more harm than good and thus should be abolished. The report outlines the problems with the tax and the case for abolishing it.
Competition or Regulation? - An Alternative Approach to Investor Protection
In this paper, Simon Read discusses the impact of the introduction of the Financial Services Authority, information and advice, regulation, and competition in the finance market.
Silk Cut
Peter Reeve, himself an experienced lawyer, says that the whole process for selecting and appointing the UK's top barristers -- Queen's Counsel -- is both antiquated and against the public interest. The legal profession is one of the country's poshest but most effective trade unions, and its top echelons have proved skilled and successful at protecting their restrictive practices through the assaults of various governments. But their monopoly restricts the numbers of those with access to this spurious qualification, and in effect sets up a pricing ring that raises the costs of the court system and prices many people out of access to justice.
Read it here.
No Limit
"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."
Read it here.
Simply No Mistake
'Simply No Mistake' outlines "the biggest pensions boost for women and carers since the creation of the welfare state" in which every pound put into a stakeholder pension would be topped up with another pound contributed by the chancellor, up to £20,000 each year. The report suggests that rules on pensions should be streamlined, scrapping limits on contributions and allowing people to save into company and personal plans at the same time.
Read it here.
Making Welfare Work
Dr Merrill Matthews of the National Center for Policy Analysis explores the lessons of the best and worst US state welfare reform programmes.
Read it here.
Competition or Regulation?
Simon Read's report anticipated much of what Ron Sandler came up with in his official government review of long term savings. Read proposes that products rather than the advice process, should be regulated - as they are in every other market. He argues for a simplified and standard tax structure covering all sorts of savings and investments, and simpler products that will allow charging structures to be simplified and charges reduced.
Hayek Commemorative Album
This album is a landmark account of the life of F.A. Hayek, Nobel Laureate Austrian economist.
Find the full album here
Passbook to Security
This paper describes the main features of the Passbook Pension, its costs and benefits, its relationship to today's personal and occupational pensions, the appropriate tax and regulatory regime, and the speed and costs of introducing the reforms.
Read it here.