"Relying on markets alone would make for a poor, dishonest, and miserable society. Banks lend for the short term, and business has to make a profit in less time than that. It succeeds brilliantly when product life is shorter than credit maturities, in retail, consumer durables, services, and...

Markets are taken as the norm in economics and in much of political and media discourse. But if markets are superior why does the public sector remain so large? Avner Offer provides a distinctive new account of the effective temporal limits on private, public, and social activity. Understanding...

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...

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...

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...

Bad ethics can make for bad economic outcome.  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...