The dangers of ever-closer tax scrutiny
The Panama Papers provoke yet more soul searching about tax avoidance. So over the weekend I have been reading HMRC recent guidan...
Central problem with banks is ‘too complex to fail’ not ‘too big to fail’
Poor Bernie Sanders. How can you expect to become President of the United States if you are not familiar with the relative sphere...
Radical uncertainty: the importance of the things we do not know we do not know
Former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King’s excellent book The End of Alchemy is inevitably noticed mainly for its views on the futur...
Democracy thrives on a diversity of thoughtful and sincerely argued views
Should Oxfam, a charity, advocate tougher tax rules for multinational companies? Should local authorities fund campaigns for mini...
Investment opportunities abound but we must get over the barriers
2016 was to have been the year of exit from quantitative easing. Instead it is to be the year of negative interest rates.
For ...
Economic statistics have not kept pace with our needs or new sources of data
Britain’s Central Statistical Office (now the Office for National Statistics) was founded in 1940 following a direct order from Winston...
The limits to productivity growth are set only by the limits to human inventiveness
Robert Gordon’s magisterial new book The Rise and Fall of American Growth is in sharp contrast to the technological optimism which bubb...
Trade debate in EU referendum should focus on UK as world leader in services
Britain runs a trade deficit with the rest of the European Union, but a trade surplus with the rest of the world. The EU accounts...
Balance sheets understate the scale of complexity in the financial system
According to the latest data from the Bank for International Settlements, the Central Bankers’ Central Bank, the total amount of outsta...
The importance of time zones to business and London’s competitive advantage
An extended trip to Asia and Australasia demonstrates the problems the different time zones of the world pose for business. People call...