Undercover Economist: Why does anyone bother contributing to Wikipedia?
A “Dear Economist” correspondent once asked me why people post clips of classic comedies on YouTube, or go to the trouble of writing online reviews, given that there seems to be nothing in it for them....
View ArticleUndercover Economist: How a nice cup of coffee worked wonders for a corner of...
When Venetia first tried to set up a café on Chatsworth Road in Hackney, east London, she encountered an unexpected obstacle: she couldn’t find a landlord who believed that she’d be good for her rent....
View ArticleUndercover Economist: Models for growth
Is the world like Play-Doh or like Lego? That might seem like an odd question for an economist, but there were some provocative characters present at a recent “Growth Week” at the London School of...
View ArticleUndercover Economist: Dissent is a sterling asset
Sir Alec Issigonis, the designer of the Mini and the Morris Minor, once declared the camel to resemble “a horse that was planned by a committee”. He has a point: this column wasn’t written by a...
View ArticleUndercover Economist: Attested development
The moral case for doing more to help the very poor is unanswerable. The practical case is more problematic: much foreign aid has been spent poorly in the past and we still have plenty to learn. The...
View ArticleUndercover Economist: Happiness rethink
For many years the received wisdom in economics has been much the same as that in Buddhism: money doesn’t make you happy (see, for instance, “The Seven Secrets of a Happy Life”, FT Weekend Magazine,...
View ArticleUndercover Economist: Stimulating debate
Should the government hire people to bury banknotes down disused mine shafts, thus stimulating the private sector to dig them up again? Keynes argued that there were circumstances in which even...
View ArticleUndercover Economist: A sense of fair play does pay
I recently had the dubious pleasure of having to deal with someone who is successful and indeed popular, and yet a stubborn, selfish bully when he thinks nobody is looking. It moved me to speculate on...
View ArticleWhere you can find me
You may have noticed that this blog has gone rather quiet while I work on my next book – sorry. The FT is going to mothball it, which seems reasonable. So – thanks for following so far. If you’d like...
View ArticleMoving on
You may have noticed that this blog has gone rather quiet while I work on my next book – sorry. The FT is going to mothball it, which seems reasonable. So – thanks for following so far. If you’d like...
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