Bad ethics can make for bad economic outcomes. Bad ethics are defined hedonically as the infliction of pain on others for private advantage. The infliction of pain is often justified by ‘Just World Theories’, which state that everyone gets what they deserve. Market liberalism (and its...

Adam Smith rejected Mandeville’s invisible-hand doctrine of ‘private vices, publick benefits’. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments his model of the ‘impartial spectator’ is driven by not by sympathy for other people, but by their approbation. Approbation needs to be authenticated, and in...

Western governments typically pay out some 30 percent of GDP for social purposes. This is financed by taxation on a pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) basis. How efficient are these transfers, and can market or other mechanisms do it better? The problem arises since no individual stands alone. During the...

Banking in the UK was stable for more than a century after 1866. Financial institutions were differentiated according to function. The core banks did not engage in maturity transformation, but in managing a payments system for business. Real estate was a potential source of instability due to...

Among affluent countries, those with market-liberal welfare regimes (which are also English-speaking) tend to have the highest prevalence of obesity. The impact of cheap, accessible high-energy food is often invoked in explanation. An alternative approach is that overeating is a response to...

Body weight has risen in defiance of health and appearance norms. The social epidemics of overeating and slimming were driven by market forces and the psychology of eating: restrained eating is easily disinhibited by stress. For men, the rise in body weight was associated with the decline of...

GDP per head is not only an economic indicator, but is widely used as a welfare indicator. This use not well founded in economic theory. The paper compares income per head with a three groups of alternative indicators: 'extended national accounts', social indicators, and indicators of subjective...

A large majority of the labour force were manual workers in 1960. As voters, they had electoral power to pursue collective goods. As producers they were able to disrupt production. The majority left school with no qualifications. Their human capital consisted of skills specific to particular...

The public sector allocates 40 percent of expenditure in Britain. Why do affluent consumers acquire so much welfare outside the market? If choice is affected by myopic bias, optimisation is costly, consumer choice is fallible, and collective consumption provides a ‘commitment device’. For a...

The Meade and Stone approach to national accounting (first published for the UK in 1941) eventually provided the template for the United Nations System of National Accounts. Feinstein’s historical national accounts for the UK developed out of this project and built on its earlier...