The university pensions strike is a selfish bid to hold future generations to ransom
University lecturers began a strike over their pensions last week. The dispute may even run on and jeopardise the summer exams. The main issue is that the universities’ pension scheme seems to be in substantial deficit. To solve the problem, a move from defined benefits to defined contributions is proposed. With the former, the pension […]
Bridget Rosewell on Modelling Review Expert Panel
Volterra Senior Adviser Bridget Rosewell has contributed to the recent report by the Government Office for Science “Computational Modelling: Technological Futures”. You can find the web version here.
Let’s join the IFS in acknowledging our misplaced fetishisation of economic data
Tomorrow, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will publish its latest estimates on how much the UK economy grew between October and December 2017, compared to July to September. Last month, the ONS thought that there was an increase of 0.5 per cent. The economy cannot be put in a set of scales and measured. […]
Master the art of brinkmanship to run Brexit rings around Barnier
Michel Barnier invokes a wide range of emotions this side of the Channel. To his credit, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator appears to have a stronger grasp of the insights of game theory than his UK counterparts. Thomas Schelling, the polymath winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, advanced the science of game theory in […]
How European commissioners really allocate EU funding
“Pork barrel” has been a theme in American politics for almost as long as the United States has existed. Many members of Congress work hard to secure public works projects, agricultural subsidies and the like for their own districts, almost regardless of the economic arguments for and against. Surely the European commissioners would rise above […]
Volterra in joint team to undertake City of London Traffic Reduction Study
The City of London Corporation has commissioned a joint team comprising transport & traffic specialists Norman Rourke Pryme, our consultancy and transport planning specialists Markides Associates to undertake the City of London Traffic Reduction Study. The City’s economic performance is vital, not just for London but for the UK, and motorised vehicle access has played […]
There are economic lessons to learn from TfL’s hated bus announcement experiment
The Transport for London (TfL) bus experiment has proved to be overwhelmingly unpopular. Supposedly at every bus stop (but more usually once the bus has pulled away) a disembodied voice informs the passengers that the bus is about to move. The hated announcement is being run as a trial for four weeks. TfL will then […]
Paul Buchanan panellist at mileage-based road pricing debate
Against a backdrop of declining fuel duty revenue, last year’s Wolfson Prize reinvigorated the road pricing debate by asking “how can we pay for better, safer, more reliable roads in a way that is fair to road users and good for the economy and the environment?” Paul Buchanan has been invited to respond to the […]
Carillion shouldn’t be brought under state control, but maybe central banks should be
A strong thread in the acres of print about the Carillion debacle is that the private sector should not really be involved in infrastructure projects. The public sector would, apparently, do it better. Readers who experienced life under the nationalised rail and telephone systems might be forgiven their scepticism. One idea which is taking hold […]
Act now, think later: Card surcharge ban is typical of myopic soundbite politics
Companies and service providers are no longer allowed to charge customers for using a credit or debit card. The new law came into effect last Saturday. The economic secretary to the Treasury, Stephen Barclay, trumpeted: “rip-off charges have no place in a modern Britain and that’s why card charging in Britain is about to come […]
