While all of the former socialist economies have liberalised and strengthened their markets over the past two decades, they have failed to strengthen the rule of law (see Table 1). Under socialism, legal systems are not designed to protect the rights of individuals. Instead, they serve the (...)
Over the last few decades, our living standards have improved significantly. Today, cars are technologically sophisticated, apartments are comfortable, and pharmaceuticals are safer. The working of the markets has enhanced technological progress. Yet, technology does not progress linearly. (...)
Despite plenty of terrifying predictions about populist coalition victory and its consequences, the latest European election provided a rather different outcome. No tsunami materialized, no earthquake. Nothing that would wipe-out the political equilibrium at the heart of the European Union as (...)
IREF is a free-market oriented think tank. It promotes ideas, events, and academic research.
With regard to research, IREF supports original projects that lead to the production of papers of academic quality of at least 7,000 words. This support is not a prize to published work, nor is it an (...)
German chancellor Angela Merkel recently expressed concerns over Germany’s and Europe’s technological competitiveness. Others voiced doubts about Germany’s tech future, too. One of the reasons mentioned more frequently to justify this pessimism is the shortage of skilled labour. As a result, calls (...)
There is no doubt that wealth mirrors taxpayers’ ability to pay better than other measures such as income. There is also no doubt that private wealth is much more unequally distributed than income, and that the dispersion in the distribution of wealth has been increasing in recent decades. (...)
In 1989, revolutions began sweeping across Eastern Europe. Communism was counting down its final days and what would soon be the end of the Iron Curtain. Eastern European economies were on the verge of leaving socialism behind and welcoming a market economy. Thirty years later, public policies (...)
The relationship between populism and market economy is problematic. Despite some important exceptions (e.g. President Donald Trump), populist parties (and candidates) quite often place themselves much closer to the pro-State extreme than to the pro-Market one. It is often argued that populist (...)
CO2 emission limits and targets are currently all over the news. For example, the European Union is gradually strengthening the environmental standards for new vehicles, with a view to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by 2050. These emission targets, however, could be reached more (...)
Press freedom in Europe is more fragile now than at any time since the end of the Cold War». This pessimistic and rather surprising statement appears at the beginning of the 2019 Annual Report published by the Council of Europe, which is the continent’s leading human rights organisation, (...)
A merger between the German conglomerate Siemens and French rail firm Alstom was blocked by the European Commission at the beginning of February over concerns that the new European rail giant would raise costs to consumers and stifle competition in transport. Less than two weeks later, the (...)
In light of increasing income inequality and wealth inequality in many Western democracies, some social scientists believe that democracy is in jeopardy. Do the rich have a disproportionally high influence on political decisions – in contrast with the ideal of equal representation of all voters? (...)
The recent paper “20 Years of the Euro: Winners and Losers” by Gasparotti & Kullas estimates that the introduction of the euro increased the pro-capita income in Germany and the Netherlands, while it impoverished the other EMU members. Critics have poured on the statistical technique. In our (...)
It is common opinion that financial cycles generate business cycles and crises, and that central banks intervene to sterilise this causal link. But there are reasons to doubt both statements.
The collection of tariffs on imports not only involves direct costs, which is the price of the tariff itself, but also numerous indirect costs. Civil servants, as an example, employed in the collection process add to the overall financial burden. So do the importers hiring employees to do the (...)
Paris has decided to recall its ambassador from Rome, further deepening one of the worst crises between the two neighbouring countries in recent European history. The dramatic (some say theatrical) move was motivated by the repeated verbal attacks that prominent Italian political leaders – Luigi (...)
So-called "neoliberalism" is nowadays more often than ever the scapegoat of anything wrong happening in contemporary democracies: from economic crisis to increase inequality, from the rise of populism to environmental catastrophes. Those who criticise it assume that support for laissez-faire (...)
Over the last few months of 2018, several European Union member states intensified their opposition to a proposed Digital Services Tax (DST), also known as the “Google Tax”. Yet, these efforts have not prevented the campaign to further damage the EU’s innovation ecosystem. As more pro-innovation (...)
“This state is not for free,” said the recently-elected leader of the Christian Democratic Union, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, promoting a mandatory year of service in the military or in the social sector for all 18-25 year-olds. The idea seems well-received among the population: a survey by (...)
The OECD Jobs Strategy was launched in 1994 in response to high and persistent unemployment in the member countries. Although unevenly spread across the labour force, at the time unemployment was indeed perceived as the main policy challenge facing the advanced countries.
The Jobs Strategy (...)
The latest tariff debate between the United States and China, and between the US and the European Union, could give the impression that tariffs are the only impediment to global trade. Yet, trade flows are also burdened by other, far less transparent, measures: non-tariff barriers. Indeed, the (...)
In less than 25 years, the Italian political system has experienced three watershed elections, an unmatched record among most (if not all) Western European democracies. In 1994, the entire Italian political galaxy, which had been dominated by Christian Democracy party for almost 50 years, (...)
The Community of Advantage by Robert Sugden has just been published by Oxford University Press. The author is a professor at the University of East Anglia, a member of the British Academy, and an influential economist. In his youth, influenced by Nobel Prize winner James Buchanan, Sugden worked (...)
US President Donald Trump’s (in)famous tweet-storms have been used as anecdotal evidence of his volatility, anger, etc., but they are also an important source of policy information. After all, it has been repeatedly noted how Trump uses social media, particularly Twitter, as a way of addressing (...)
Crises, shortages, and bad news are often dominating daily politics and media coverage. Under the radar of politics and media, however, highly desirable developments have been taking place. Among those is growing GDP per capita across the OECD since the 1990s. The strong economic growth in the (...)
There exists more or less a consensus that the state must promote the arts. This exists even among many who know that state intervention brings market distortions, and it should be clear the arts are no exception. The case of the Salon de Paris, investigated by F. Etro, S. Marchesi and E. (...)
The European Fiscal Board (EFB) - an agency established in 2015 by the European Commission to evaluate the implementation of EU fiscal rules and to advise the Commission on fiscal policies suitable to the euro area - has published its second annual Report (10th October 2018). The Report reviews (...)
In a recent paper titled "Evaluating the replicability of social science experiments in Nature and Science Between 2010 and 2015", a group of researchers set out to replicate a series of experiments published in prestigious academic journals, employing larger samples and different sophisticated (...)
While the country and the main political parties are still focused on the Brexit debate, there is a potential educational, economic and financial crisis in the making, which may in the near future affect people involved in higher education in England.
After a government-supported process of (...)
Minister Hulot is leaving. We should rejoice, if only we knew the story of the old woman of Syracuse, told by Valerius Maximus (1st century AD historian), about Denys, one of Syracuse’s tyrants, loathed by everybody. One day, Denys heard about an old woman who prayed for him every single day. (...)
If one wonders what Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Jeremy Corbyn and Matteo Salvini have in common, the answer is that each of them has been labelled populist, a word whose meaning is therefore being diluted as a result of loose usage. As emphasized by the BBC commentator Lionel Shriver, starting (...)
The European Union has been hard at work attempting to harmonise national markets in an effort to build a competitive and innovative Digital Single Market by reducing the ability for individual member states to develop cumbersome barriers to market entry. One of the flagship proposals of the (...)
Why is Turkey’s Currency Falling?
During the past five years, we have observed the ebbs and flows of US and European capital markets investment appetite for the emerging markets (EM). Nothing deters EM investment more than currency fears, and many European fund managers must be pleased that (...)
The extent of the climate change is significantly affected by the size of the world population. A larger population increases the use of resources and more greenhouse gases are emitted. It is usually assumed the world population will continue to grow at the same pace as in the recent past. In (...)
In the last few years, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has become one of the most investigated and discussed topics in the political and economic debate. 4IR is based on the application of new technologies, primarily digital ones, in production. Specifically, according to Boston (...)
The global economic order is changing: The free trade agreement TTIP has been put on hold; the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which held a dominant position after WWII with its multilateral rules has lost influence; the US, the EU and China are threatening each other with higher tariffs one (...)
Economists use the per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the main indicator of the level of material well-being achieved by a country. The GDP is the cake with which we feed ourselves; the portfolio to draw on to meet our material needs. In recent years, there have been many critical (...)
The European Commission handed Google a record-breaking €4.3 billion fine and demanded major changes to its business model over alleged competition abuses on its Android mobile operating system. The Competition Commission claimed Google was abusing manufacturers to “cement its dominant position” (...)
In order to achieve a satisfactory degree of socio-economic cohesion, the European authorities have long recognized the importance of convergence in per capita levels of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). As the fulfilment of this objective requires that relatively poor regions exhibit per capita (...)
This open letter, addressed by 154 German economists against the Euro zone reform proposed by France, passed all but unnoticed. These well-known economists warn against a Europe led by a European Minister of Finances and the European Central Bank. In contrast with the French proposal, the (...)
The Heathrow Expansion
On the night of the 25th of June, the UK Parliament voted in favour (415 to 119) of the £14bn expansion of Heathrow airport in London. This decision represents the latest episode in a decade-long national debate on the creation of third runway at Heathrow. Those is (...)
On May 25th, 2018, one of the most sweeping changes to the regulation of the internet, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), came into effect. While it has been only a few weeks since the new privacy policies have been enacted, there are already noticeable changes to (...)
“Do good and talk about it” became compulsory last year with the introduction of the new European CSR directive for companies with more than 500 employees. The keyword is Corporate Social Responsibility. Companies are compelled to provide annual reports about their charitable commitments. In (...)
Scotland has recently imposed a price-floor on all alcoholic products, requiring retailers to charge at least £0.50 per unit (equal to 8g of pure alcohol, according to the UK government). The intention behind this imposition is to restrict the affordability of cheap, highly alcoholic drinks, in (...)
A paper by economists Luigi Guiso, Paola Sapienza and Luigi Zingales (GSZ) has recently made headlines and received widespread approval within the academic community. Their contribution, titled Long-term Persistence, provides the empirical test of a hypothesis put forward in 1993 by American (...)
On this 5th of May, the author of the Capital would have blown his 200 candles. Embittered by the communism theorist’s admirers, Nicolas Lecaussin explains how his idea was contradicted by facts.
A Romanian who became French, Bogdan Călinescu lived his adolescence under Ceaușescu’s dictatorship. (...)
IREF is a free-market oriented think tank based in France. It promotes ideas, debates, events, and rigorous academic research. IREF supports research projects that lead to the production of original papers of academic quality of at least 7,000 words. This support is not a prize to published (...)
With martial rhetoric the US president Donald Trump is threatening with new trade barriers. Europeans follow a similar policy albeit at a more moderate tone. The European Union also imposes often hefty tariffs on steel and aluminium from China – the justifications are surprisingly similar. On (...)
Since the introduction of the Pharmaceutical Tariff Elimination Agreement in the early 2000’s, the trade of pharmaceutical goods between the EU and US has been conducted mostly without the hindrance of tariff barriers. While this has certainly been a step in the right direction for a freer (...)
In mid-January, the European Parliament voted a resolution to phase out the use of palm oil as a component of clean diesel by 2021. This is a ban only on one ingredient, all other diesel “cleaners” are not treated. In particular, the Parliament asked the Commission “to take measures to phase out (...)
css js