John Kay

The gap between the assumed responsibilities of government for financial services regulation and its effective powers grows ever more costly. Fannie Mae and Equitable Life are the latest examples.

The notion that extending intellectual property rights in the music industry would provide pensions for ageing and impoverished crooners is an engaging fantasy.

Mr Buffett’s success demonstrates the weakness of one economic theory, the efficient market hypothesis, and the strength of another – the central role that the pursuit and defence of economic rents plays in modern corporate life.

The political consequences of international trade are different from the political consequences of international investment. Yet the willingness of business to transcend political divisions in pursuit of commercial advantage is basically a force for peace.

Farewell to ICI, Britain’s leading industrial company for most of the 20th century. As a national institution, ICI nurtured some of Britain’s best management talent and developed the skills and knowledge behind the country’s most successful postwar industry.

There was too much haste in following up on successful early privatisations, in a perhaps justified belief that almost any organisational structure would be better than the British conception of nationalised industry.

There are two methods of allocating property rights: Top down – by the dictates of a central administration – or bottom up – rights to land are acquired by working it.

The company headquarters should be the place from which the business can best be run. Location decisions often involve proximity to necessary resources. For banks, this nowadays means access to political and commercial capital.

Private equity promoters propose layer upon layer of debt, leveraged by non-recourse finance. But the same finance theory also tells us that you do not increase the value of an investment portfolio by increasing gearing.

The right general principle is that brand names and trade marks should be protected, not where there is a producer interest in doing so, but where there is a consumer detriment from failing to do so.