HS2 Stoke Route – Better, cheaper, faster and greener
Volterra has central role in developing the stunning business case for HS2 the Stoke Route – which was launched in Westminster on the 15th October. The Stoke Route has been developed by a partnership of top consultants commissioned by Council to make the case for an HS2 station between Birmingham and Manchester at in the […]
The Happy Band of the Self Employed
How many workers does the typical American firm employ? Actually, it is a trick question. The answer is ‘zero’. More than 50 per cent of all companies in the United States are one person operations – the owner, and no-one else. This fragmentation of size is increasingly reflected in the UK. Here, the main growth […]
Can Nanny make you stop drinking?
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has been the butt of much ridicule over the past week. A pill designed to reduce alcohol consumption among problem drinkers will be made available across the NHS. But the concept of problem drinkers is so wide that it embraces people who enjoy a couple of […]
Groupthink and the troubles at Tesco
The latest fiasco at Tesco could prove an embarrassment for more than just the retailer. There appears to have been an over-recording of profit of some £250m, and some are asking questions about the company’s auditors. Of course, the full story has yet to emerge, and Tesco’s auditors did flag issues in their most recent report. […]
Impact of the Night Tube on London’s Night Time Economy
London is the most visited city in the world, and the most attractive for Foreign Direct Investment. It is a place where people love to come to do business, see the sights, experience the culture and heritage, to socialise and have fun. London already has an extensive transport system which supports its economy but it […]
Impact of the Night Tube on London’s Night Time Economy
The team at Volterra produced the figures which underpinned Transport for London and London First’s report on the impact of the Night Tube on the night time economy in London. The findings indicated that the Night Tube will support 1,965 permanent jobs in the night time economy, and that there could be time savings of […]
Coping with Uncertainty: the Red Hot Topic in Economics
After months of Trappist silence, a whole plethora of large companies has pronounced on the adverse consequences for Scotland of a Yes vote tomorrow. The sectors span the economy, from oil to banks, from supermarkets to phone companies. But what will be the effect of these interventions? From the perspective of a rational economic person, […]
Scottish Independence and Fairytale Land
Sir James Mirrlees is one of the mere handful of British recipients of the Nobel Prize in economics. As his fine old Scottish surname might suggest, he has been active in the debate on independence. His latest intervention, which has attracted considerable publicity, is to pronounce that an independent Scotland should be willing to repudiate […]
After the BRICs, the GIPSIs: Tackling Europe’s Problems
The Euro zone lurches into yet another crisis, with fears of deflation and a further drop in output. There are several dominant explanations of why Europe has been unable to recover from the crisis. Most commentators subscribe to them either on their own, or in various combinations, depending on their tastes. One puts the blame […]
Wall Street no smarter than Mr and Mrs Average
Lurid stories about the excesses in the UK housing market continue to proliferate. True, there is some evidence of a cooling, as the price rises tempt more sellers into the market and temporarily increase supply relative to demand. But at the same time we learn in the Sunday Times that the good burghers of Cobham […]
