Blog

June 21, 2017

Early Elections in Italy? An Issue of Democracy, Corruption, and Banks

With the potential for an early election by the end of the year, Italy must face the realities of its democratic system: cronyism and corruption; weak banks and Eurozone difficulties; and the suspicious, undeniable, link between the two.
June 16, 2017

The Economic Case for a More Liberal Immigration Policy

In his now-classic work The myth of the rational voter, Bryan Caplan identifies four systematic biases about economics held by the average citizen: make-work bias (an inclination to overestimate the disadvantages of temporary job destruction due to productivity increases), anti-market bias (a tendency to overlook the benefits of the market as a coordination mechanism), pessimistic bias (an inclination to underestimate the present and future performance of the economy), and anti-foreign bias (a tendency to underestimate the economic benefits of interaction with foreigners).
June 2, 2017

Estonia’s E-governance: A Lesson on Efficiency for the EU

In April of last year, the European Commission released the European eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020 which lines up the goals for the EU’s progress towards a digitalised system “to modernise public administration, to achieve the digital internal market, and to engage more with citizens and businesses to deliver high quality services.”
June 1, 2017

Beware the Siren Voices Calling for the ‘Norway Option’

The Tories’ poor showing in the general election has revitalised those who favour some form of ‘soft Brexit’. In particular, there is growing support for a Norwegian-style arrangement as a means to retain the UK’s membership of the Single Market – at least during a transitional period.