free trade

January 1, 2014

Income From Work – the Fourth Pillar of Income Provision in Old Age

The benefits of increasing labour participation rates in old age flow both to the individual – in terms of improved health and increased incomes – and to society as a whole as greater employment at older ages will reduce the costs of ageing populations.
September 1, 2013

Facts and Analysis: An Integrated European Market for Card, Internet and Mobile Payments

Regulation, specifically Interchange Fee caps on credit and debit cards, would be especially harmful to consumers and new merchants or start-up businesses that rely on or are developing new innovative solutions for the e-commerce market.
September 1, 2013

Call to Reform Eu’s €7.5bn Ngo Budget

Brussels, 24 September – The European Union spends €7.5 billion a year on non-governmental organisations, even if some of them act against the public interest, according to a new report.
May 1, 2013

Work Longer, Live Healthier: The Relationship Between Economic Activity, Health, and Government Policy

Higher state pension ages are not only possible (given longer life expectancy) and desirable (given the fiscal costs of state pensions) but later retirement should, in fact, lead to better average health in retirement.
May 1, 2013

The Proof of the Pudding: Denmark’s Fat Tax Fiasco

Denmark’s fat tax remains the leading example of an ambitious anti-obesity policy being tested in the real world. The results failed to match the predictions of computer models and the failed experiment has since been largely swept under the carpet in public health circles.
March 1, 2013

Euro Puppets: The European Commission’s Remaking of Civil Society

With public confidence in the European project waning, the idea of initiating a ‘civil dialogue’ with the public emerged in the mid-1990s as a way of bolstering the EU’s democratic legitimacy. Citizens have been ventriloquised through ‘sock puppet’ charities, think tanks and other ‘civil society’ groups which have been hand-picked and financed by the European Commission (EC).
November 1, 2012

Barriers to Prosperity – Developing Countries and the Need for Trade Liberalisation

Non-tariff barriers are an important impediment to trade for less developed countries. They need to be brought to the forefront of the trade debate if developing countries are to move into the export of higher value added products.