This year’s Nobel economics laureates have made the world a better place

This year’s Nobel Prize in economics, announced on Monday, was a ray of sunshine amid the prevailing media gloom. The Prize was awarded for the work the new laureates had done on the alleviation of global poverty. This is one reason to be cheerful about it. Another is that Esther Duflo became only the second […]

Behavioural economics has had its Nobel moment, but take it with a pinch of salt

Behavioural economics has received the ultimate accolade. Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago Business School has been awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for his work in this area. Economics over the past 20 to 30 years has become far more empirical. Leading academic journals do still carry purely theoretical articles, but far less […]

Kenneth Arrow proved economists needn’t be loud to make a difference

Seesaw

Does winning the Nobel Prize in economics cause longevity?  We might be forgiven for thinking so.  Thomas Schelling died last year aged 95.  The author of the famous textbook, Paul Samuelson, passed away at 94, whilst his colleague, Bob Solow, is still going strong at 92.  The British Laureate Ronald Coase reached the age of […]

Rising Residential Segregation, but Less Racial Prejudice: How Can This Be?

Britain is becoming more sharply divided on ethnic lines, according to a study just published by the think-tank Demos. During the past decade, more than 600,000 white people have moved out of London to areas which are more than 90 per cent white. The effect is strongest amongst white Britons with children, with a fall […]

Chess and Decision Making

The World Chess Championship is underway, and the current champion – the Indian Viswanathan Anand – is trailing his young rival Magnus Carlsen by three to five. In the opinion of many, Carlsen is set fair to become the strongest ever human player. The match is an absorbing spectacle, but the game of chess is […]