Jon Moulton is a top businessman and insolvency expert. In this think piece, adapted from a speech to the Economic Research Council, he argues that the government's current policies amount to a deferral of pain onto the next generation through borrowing and artificially-low interest rates. This will ultimately lead to much worse pain in the long run.
In this extract from his new book, Chasing Rainbows, Tim Worstall fires a broadside against the environmentalist lobby and argues that the conventional 'solutions' to climate change don't even meet the environmentalists' own standards and defy their own advice. The book takes on the global warming alarmists on their own terms by accepting the IPPC’s science and using logic and economics to argue that the ends that environmentalists want is best achieved through more globalization and freer markets, not government interventions like cap-and-trade.
In this article, Dr Eamonn Butler argues that the UK is facing another financial crisis as early as 2019. He claims the next crisis will be caused by us promising ourselves state healthcare, pensions, and other benefits that our taxpaying children won't be able to afford to pay off.
Britain's debt is spiralling and, even after the Comprehensive Spending Review, it is set to reach critical levels by 2018 unless radical action is taken to change course. In this paper Miles Saltiel tackles the country's intergenerational obligations – that is, spending on healthcare, welfare, pensions and education – and shows that we urgently need to radically review the state's relationship with the people to avoid fiscal catastrophe along Irish lines.
In this think piece, Karthik Reddy identifies the main problems in the UK aviation industry, particularly the government's regulation of airport slots which creates perverse incentives for airlines to waste these slots rather than sell or share them to use them efficiently. Reddy argues that deregulation of airport slots would reduce the artificial scarcity of these slots as well as other inefficiencies in the system caused by government regulation of aviation.
In this briefing paper, Karthik Reddy argues that the British constitutional arrangement has changed such that traditional checks and balances against governmental abuses of power have been lost, and says that a codified constitution is needed which clearly articulates the limits to parliamentary sovereignty. Reddy argues that the Prime Minister's presidential powers must be recognised and responded to by separating the executive from the legislature and making the office of Prime Minister directly electable by the British people, with parliament acting as an independent legislative balance against the executive.
In this think piece, Professor Anthony J. Evans discusses the possible implications of a second round of quantitative easing in the UK. He argues that further QE will prove counter-productive, instead advocating a positive programme for laissez-faire economics.
In this think piece, Anton Howes argues that the Browne Review offers the strongest option for reforming universities funding. The article argues that removing the cap on fees combined with a modification of the Review's proposals for repayments would give students more choice and more control over their education, and improve access to higher level education for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
In this article Eamonn analyses Ed Miliband's speech to the CBI and argues that Ed's solutions to encouraging economic growth are very much along the same lines as Gordon Brown's. Eamonn proposes instead that in order to re-skill Britain we need politicians to let business people get on with the job of wealth-creation, whilst cutting the burden of regulation and taxation.
In this article Sam Bowman argues that the biggest mistake made by the government in the Comprehensive Spending Review is the announcement that the Department for International Development's (DfID) budget will be increased by 37 percent by 2015.
The Adam Smith Institute is the UK’s leading libertarian think tank...
