A post-mortem of pandemic-era lockdowns expose a dangerous disregard for scepticism

Like most people, the revelations from the leaked WhatsApps of government ministers during the pandemic have left me with a mixture of emotions.  At one level, they reveal how difficult it is to make decisions amidst considerable uncertainty. It is always easy, after the event, to point to mistakes and say they could have been […]

On coronavirus, governments have been the most irrational of us all

Decisions, whether by individuals, companies or governments, are often made with imperfect and incomplete information. This is so obvious as to hardly seem worth stating. But for well over a century economic theory assumed that decisions were made with complete information. Economists knew full well that this was not always the case. The problem was […]

Coronavirus: Economists have a role to play in recovery

Lockdowns are starting to be eased in Europe. Austria, Denmark, Italy and Spain are all moving back towards normality. At some point during May, the UK will follow. We can reflect on what the government has got right and wrong so far in the opening phase of the pandemic. This is emphatically not to apportion […]