Memos on the faulty speedometer
In which Sir Humphrey Appleby wrestles with my musings on the retail price index?
The hope, or fear, that it might be you
Thinking clearly about risk is difficult: we are influenced by hopes, by regrets, and by an inability to evaluate new risks.
The future is not what it used to be
A look at 1960s futurology suggests that we have been misled by one extraordinary sector, electronics, into exaggerating the rate at which the world around us is changing.
Size and Scale 3: Size does not guarantee survival
If there is not much evidence to support the view that large firms outperform small, or that industrial structures are becoming more concentrated, why do so many people still believe these things are true?
Size and Scale 2 (with Leslie Hannah): Myth of critical mass
Despite beliefs about the inevitability of size and concentration, and despite vigorous efforts to make them come true, the share of large firms in total output is not going up.
Size and Scale 1: Gigantic misconceptions
Never has the cult of gigantism gone so far. But what are the real advantages to scale?
No accounting for creatures of habit
Successful industrialists claim not to act in accordance with economic theory - why is the theory still taught?
In defence of endogenous growth theory
Much jargon is designed to conceal vacuity of thought. But technical terms have their place.
When the competitor turns predator
When is a price cut bad for consumers? When it is predatory.
The Role of Business in Society
The view of business as necessarily selfish, narrow and instrumental, is, as it always has been, nonsense. Business which is selfish in motivation, narrow in outlook, and instrumental in behaviour is rarely successful business.