Undercover Economist

My weekly column in the Financial Times on Saturdays, explaining the economic ideas around us every day. This column was inspired by my book and began in 2005.

Can gamers outplay rapacious capitalists?

Forty years ago, a kid from down the street told me about this cool new game, Tunnels & Trolls. Something about his explanation kept eluding my grasp. Was it a computer game, like Pac-Man or Chuckie Egg? A board game, like Risk or Monopoly? No. There was no...

read more

Why Chatbots are bound to spout bullshit

Much has changed since 1986, when the Princeton philosopher Harry Frankfurt published an essay in an obscure journal, Raritan, titled “On Bullshit”. Yet the essay, later republished as a slim bestseller, remains unnervingly relevant. Frankfurt’s brilliant insight was...

read more

How to fix the British economy

I recently argued that the UK’s economic performance has been disastrous for 15 years. The consequences are plain to see: people are struggling to make ends meet; taxes are high, yet public services are overloaded; fights over a shrinking economic pie are leading to...

read more

What Lego can teach us about saving the planet

Can Lego save the world? That’s one idea that stuck with me reading How Big Things Get Done, a new book by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner. Flyvbjerg is perhaps the world’s leading authority on the failure of megaprojects — or how big things get done, but woefully late...

read more

Pin It on Pinterest