First published in Business Life Magazine, November 2008 I enjoy a glass of red, but I have to admit I am hardly a connoisseur: a friend once handed me a wine guide and invited me to read it prior to the next time I brought round a bottle. But now I have a secret...
Even those addicted to alcohol drink less when costs rise, says economist Tim Harford. Because we all respond to prices - even to the point of the day we die or give birth. If Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson has his way, one day we will have to pay at least...
As so often, the Sage of Omaha put it best: "Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money." These days, it is hard to disagree. Warren Buffett's warning now looks less like a mere aphorism and more like a sharp summary of the latest research in...
First published in Business Life Magazine, October 2008 Given the macho reputation of the trading floors of London and New York, headlines were guaranteed this spring when researchers at Cambridge University published their findings: the research linked the behaviour...
Why the NFL should replace the overtime coin toss with an auction system. If the Super Bowl goes into overtime for the first time ever, it's fairly certain who will be victorious: the team that wins the coin toss. In the first round of the playoffs, the Chargers beat...
First published: Business Life Magazine, August 2008 Sir William Petty, an advisor to Oliver Cromwell and a Professor of Anatomy at Oxford, seems an unlikely hero for economists. Yet nowadays his claim to fame is that he produced the first estimate of Britain’s...
I wrote this for the Today program; scroll down and you can hear an interview with me on the subject from this morning's show. "I'm backing Britain…", crooned Bruce Forsyth in 1968. "Yes I'm backing Britain/We're all backing Britain." Despite Brucie's support, the...
First published Business Life magazine, January 2008 Are you keeping your new year’s resolutions? If not, perhaps you should turn to economics for help. That might seem like a strange piece of advice, because the staple of economic models, “rational economic man”,...
FT Magazine, 6 December 2008 Bob Annibale's corner office, high up in one of London's few real skyscrapers, overlooks the Thames and the Millennium Dome from one window, Greenwich Park and the Royal Observatory from another. It is the kind of enviable perch you'd...