The whole of Paley's contribution to economics is contained in a single chapter of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785). The object of ‘rational politics’ is to maximize ‘happiness’, and Paley argued that this is achieved by maximizing population. Population is determined by the total...

The euro zone crisis is commonly regarded as a sovereign debt crisis. This definition certainly applies to Greece, but the Irish case represents an almost pure specimen of a banking crisis voluntarily transformed into a sovereign crisis. A debt crisis in two small, peripheral economies could...

The global financial crisis that began in mid-2007 and exploded in the fall of 2008 shocked most economists. Some had raised concerns about the rapid growth in the housing market in developed countries, especially to “sub-prime,” high-risk borrowers. Others had been concerned about large...

Since 1 January 1999 the European Central Bank (ECB) has had sole responsibility for monetary policy in the euro area. Its main aim is to maintain price stability over the medium term. It is completely independent. The ECB has been successful in maintaining price stability and well-anchored...

One of the main objectives of the EU is cohesion, namely a decrease in the disparity of wealth between its constituent parts. A considerable part of the EU budget is earmarked for this policy. The policy should also support the EU 2020 strategy, which focuses on smart, inclusive and sustainable...

Edgeworth price cycles refer to an asymmetric pattern of prices that result from a dynamic pricing equilibrium among competing oligopolists. The resulting time series takes on a sawtooth shape – many small price decreases interrupted only by occasional large price increases. Maskin and Tirole...

The Olympic Games are among the largest and most visible sporting events in the world. Every twoyears, the world’s best athletes from some 200 countries come together to compete in lavish new venues in front of thousands of spectators. Hundreds of millions of sports fans worldwide watch the...

Recent events have led to a renewed effort to understand the nature of cyclical fluctuations in the price and quantity of new investment in housing. This paper provides a brief summary of the existing literature modelling housing and the business cycle.

Elinor Ostrom, a recipient of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009, had a foundational contribution to the Public Choice movement and to the rise of the new institutionalism and has been a key figure in the resurgence of political economy. Her studies...

Solow's method of decomposing the growth in aggregate output into that part due to growth in inputs and that part due to technological progress has become the standard method for measuring technological progress, or growth in total factor productivity. This contribution outlines the method and...