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…
Publications
The Eurosystem: a parasite serving only the needs of the Eurozone public sector
The European Central Bank (ECB) held its latest Governing Council meeting on 14 April 2022 and issued its normal press release. It also included a facile graphic titled ‘Our monetary…
Just two and a half years after planning began, Tesla’s “Gigafactory” on the outskirts of Berlin went into operation at the beginning of April. Meanwhile, the construction of Berlin Brandenburg…
As the COVID period is coming to a close, governments hesitate to cut public expenditure and try to find ways of raising more resources through taxation. In this light, one…
How can sanctions end the war? Easily, according to respected Russian chess superstar and political activist, Gary Kasparov. Simply isolate all Russian banks from the global financial infrastructure, confiscate all…
Russia’s President Putin conducts a bloody war in Ukraine. The German government struggles to impose sanctions that could endanger Russian gas supplies. The Wirtschaftswoche headlines: “Putin has Germany under control…
Payment technocrats have crippled EU’s ability to impose biting sanctions on Russia
The EU recently announced partial financial sanctions on Russia, designed to keep payments for energy moving. The EU accepted the contention – disproved below – that a bank either gets…
Policy for marriage theory: the economic efficiency – and fairness – of prenuptial agreements
WP 2022-01. Executive Summary Prenuptial agreements or contracts (also known as prenups) are written contracts that enable affianced parties to organize their rights upon marrying, and eventually facilitate the procedure of divorce. They…
What game-theoretic analysis tells us about the possibility that the actual conflict will escalate
About 60 years ago, Nobel laureate Thomas Shelling published a book titled “The strategy of conflict”. It was written during the cold war and reflects the typical worries of the…
The left-liberal newspaper The Guardian recently published “Has Covid ended the neoliberal era?” by Adam Tooze, Professor of History at Columbia University. The article embodies a renewed vigor on the…