John Kay

A stance which is pro-business must be distinguished from a stance which is pro-market. In the two decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, that distinction has not been appreciated well enough.

Markets are not a well-oiled machine: they are a constantly changing, adaptive biological system.

Markets are not a well oiled physical machine: they are a constantly changing, adaptive biological system. Pluralism is their motive force, their essence chaotic, their development inherently uncertain. If we could predict the evolution of markets, we would not need markets in the first place.

If financial institutions are to survive, they must behave more like supermarkets

The Reform of Banking Regulation
We should spend less time trying to ensure that our regulators can regulate financial behemoths with turnovers bigger than the GDP of many countries and more on trying to redesign the financial services industry so that regulation focuses on the interests of the public as consumers of financial services.
Download the full report [...]

The benefit of road improvements is principally the reduced time and strain on private motorists, not the economic advantages to road transport operators: that lesson should influence the way we plan our road networks. Fast roads for light traffic are much cheaper to build than superhighways.

A licence-fee-based BBC was the guarantor of quality television in a monopoly market. But a licence-fee-based BBC is now the main obstacle to quality television in a competitive market.

Regulatory agencies often come to see their functions through the eyes of those they regulate. The label for this process is regulatory capture.

Dominance of an industry or activity is not the same as scale. International trade is conducted by individuals and businesses, not governments, and it is them, who negotiate the division of the value added trade creates.

I do not think children should be taught that greed is the most powerful human motivation. The people who are most successful in business in the long run are people who are passionate about business, not money.