January 1, 2017

Obesity and the Public Purse

This is the first study to estimate the annual savings that overweight and obese people bring UK taxpayers by dying prematurely (in 2016 prices). Ignoring these savings leads to substantial overestimation of the true burden of elevated body mass index (BMI) to the taxpayer.
November 4, 2016

Hire Authority

In recent years, smartphone-enabled applications such as Uber have gone a long way to resolve the market imperfections which gave rise to taxi regulation in the past. GPS technology and Big Data have spurred market innovations which reduce informational asymmetries, facilitating transactions between passengers and drivers.
February 2, 2015

Brexit: Directions for Britain Outside the EU

It is quite possible that there will be a referendum on whether Britain should leave the European Union in the next few years. However, few people have well-formed views on what they believe should happen if we leave the EU.
September 1, 2014

Advertising in a Free Society

In practice it is impossible to distinguish between advertising that is intended to be persuasive and advertising that is intended to be informative. Persuasive advertising normally has information content and even basic information provided by a company about its products will normally be intended to make consumers more interested in the product.
June 1, 2014

Punishing the Majority: Problems With Alcohol Policy in UK

Alcohol policy in Britain and many other countries aims to reduce per capita alcohol consumption in the belief that this will inevitably reduce heavy and harmful drinking. The cornerstone policies of this approach are advertising bans, licensing restrictions and higher taxes.
March 1, 2014

The Government Debt Iceberg

Western governments have developed unfunded social insurance programmes where retiree benefits are paid for from the taxes of the working-age population. This means that an ageing population leads to 
rising expenditures that cannot be covered without increasing taxes on the young.
January 1, 2014

Income From Work – the Fourth Pillar of Income Provision in Old Age

The benefits of increasing labour participation rates in old age flow both to the individual – in terms of improved health and increased incomes – and to society as a whole as greater employment at older ages will reduce the costs of ageing populations.
December 1, 2013

From Nationalisation to State Control – the Return of Centralised Energy Planning

For a short period, around the turn of the millennium, the UK energy market was highly competitive, offering choice to consumers and keeping prices in check.

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EPICENTER publications and contributions from our member think tanks are designed to promote the discussion of economic issues and the role of markets in solving economic and social problems. As with all EPICENTER publications, the views expressed here are those of the author and not EPICENTER or its member think tanks (which have no corporate view).

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EPICENTER publications and contributions from our member think tanks are designed to promote the discussion of economic issues and the role of markets in solving economic and social problems. As with all EPICENTER publications, the views expressed here are those of the author and not EPICENTER or its member think tanks (which have no corporate view).