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...

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

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

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...

Western governments usually are sent about 30% of GDP for social purposes. Financing is carried out due to tax payments through the system of taxes from current revenue (hereinafter - PAYGO, pay-as-you-go). How effective such transfers, and whether the market or other mechanisms to improve this...