The Eternal Battle between Ideology and Expertise

In politics and policymaking, controversies and conflicts arise often. The term denotes situations where even knowledgeable, rational, and sincere actors struggle to resolve an …

The empirical evidence is clear: anti-vaping policies are pro-tobacco policies

A study published in JAMA Pediatrics this week looked a ban on e-cigarette flavours implemented in San Francisco on 1 January 2019. The ban was supposed …

Europe’s e-health status: balancing innovation and data protection

The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the rate of digitisation in European healthcare systems. Europe’s ageing population projections estimate that by 2070 people aged 65 or …

Nanny State Index 2021

The 2021 edition of the Nanny State Index, which has been expanded to 30 countries in Europe, shows that Germany has taken the top spot …

Vaccine Passports are the way to go for the EU

Vaccine passports are all the rage right now in the EU. One of the largest consequences of the pandemic has been significant restrictions to …

Lessons from vaccination strategies: the EU needs a dose of pragmatism

While the EU has been criticised for its lack of preparation, guidance, and strong unified response amidst the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the arrival of vaccines …

Vaping’s image problem

Surveys suggest that public understanding of the risks and benefits of e-cigarettes has become divorced from the scientific evidence. A Eurobarometer survey conducted in …

Enough of the “coronfirmation bias”

Last spring, my colleague Chris Snowdon compiled an amusing Twitter thread highlighting examples of commentators and activists who were using the pandemic as a new excuse …

Over-reach: the EU’s lifestyle regulation plans

A report published by the European Commission on 3 February 2021 proposes a range of nanny state interventions intended to reduce the consumption of …

Obesity and Overweight in Italy and the OECD Area

The way obesity is measured throughout the EU and OECD countries is significantly flawed. This paper shows that existing international comparisons measuring obesity are …

The East German Healthcare Phenomenon

The reunification of West Germany and East Germany took place 30 years ago, ending a period of around 45 years during which Germany had …

A response to the SCHEER preliminary opinion

In September 2020, the EU’s Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) published a preliminary opinion (SCHEER 2020) on electronic cigarettes which …

Netherland’s crackdown on e-cigarettes

The Netherlands is on the brink of introducing plain packaging for e-cigarettes. The only other country to have gone down that path is Israel. Not many …

You Had One Job

The World Health Organization (WHO) and Public Health England (PHE) have been widely criticised for their response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Serious questions have …

The response to the pandemic: A Hayekian view

Socio-economic systems should be understood as ‘complex’ phenomena that cannot effectively be controlled or managed through central planning. In general, markets and other decentralised …

Coronavirus and the economic value of human life

The Covid-19 crisis has provided many grim examples of some familiar problems in health economics and cost-benefit analysis, and of the ‘tragic choices’ that …

The issue at stake was not to choose between lives and the economy

We often hear that managing a crisis like coronavirus depends on societal choices. The choice would be to save lives or economies. Health and …

Vaccine: we must change our absurd rules instead of castigating Sanofi

Excessively high taxes on production, exceedingly slow authorizations for market launch, and an overbearing bureaucracy. France is ensuring that innovation, especially regarding pharmaceuticals, happens …

Model Behaviour: How economists can shape the post-lockdown word

The seminal work on epidemiological models was carried out in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The models have developed substantially since then, but …

The problem is not testing capacity but testing participation

This paper argues that testing participation – and not testing capacity – is the biggest obstacle to a successful “test and isolate” strategy, as …

How fragile systems worsened the impact of COVID-19

There are features of our way of life and some of our economic systems that make outbreaks like Covid-19 more likely. The pandemic we …

COVID-19: WHO to blame?

 
Much of the WHO rhetoric on COVID-19 has treated the pandemic as an unavoidable, natural disaster devoid of blame – this is …

Going Viral: The History and Economics of Pandemics

Pandemics are a recurring feature of human history. In the modern world, since the 1770s, we have had a series of pandemics, with a …

Norwegian sugar tax sends sweet-lovers over border to Sweden

It seems unfair to call it a sweet shop. In the shopping centre north of Charlottenberg in south-western Sweden, barely four miles from Norway …

Nanny State On Tour

This study calculates how much UK foreign aid was spent (in 2018 prices) on lifestyle interventions targeting smoking, drinking, eating and sedentary behaviour.UK taxpayers …

The Nanny State Index 2019

The Epicenter Nanny State Index is a league table of the best and worst places in the European Union to eat, drink, smoke and …

Fast Food Outlets and Obesity: What is the evidence?

Several local authorities in Britain have introduced ‘zoning laws’ to restrict fast food outlets within a certain distance of schools. Public Health England, the …

Sugar taxes have never worked anywhere

‘You can’t just point at things and tax them,’ said the singer Myleene Klass to Ed Miliband in a TV debate about the ‘mansion …

Health by stealth: Mandatory food reformulation

Food and soft drinks manufacturers are continually reformulating their products and bringing new products to market in response to consumer demand. In recent years, …

Sweden and its inconsistent alcohol laws

On 29 June, EPICENTER’s Swedish partner, Timbro, published a report examining alcohol laws in Sweden. Within the Swedish political arena, alcohol consumption has always …

The Nanny State crusade marches on

Today sees the publication of the 2017 edition of the Nanny State Index, a league table of the best and worst places in the …

Nanny State Index Summary

The EPICENTER Nanny State Index is the only comprehensive league table of lifestyle regulations. The latest data suggest that the EU is becoming a …

Nanny State Index

The EPICENTER Nanny State Index is the only comprehensive league table of lifestyle regulations. The latest data suggest that the EU is becoming a …

Cheap as Chips: Is a healthy diet affordable?

It is widely believed that healthy eating is relatively expensive whereas ‘junk food’ is relatively cheap. This has led to an assumption that poor diets …

Obesity and the Public Purse

This is the first study to estimate the annual savings that overweight and obese people bring UK taxpayers by dying prematurely (in 2016 prices). …

Ageing Europe: A Mixed Blessing

Pension Systems and Politicians’ Temptations
 
It is common knowledge that Europeans are in their best physical shape ever. On average, in the European …

Innovation in harm reduction

18 October, 2016
Permissionless Innovation
 
Scientific research has made important breakthroughs in harm reduction in recent years. In the field of alcohol consumption, …

Innovation in Food Labelling

18 October, 2016
 
Geographical Indications
 
According the European Commission, a Geographical Indication (GI) is “a distinctive sign used to identify a product …

The fight of a generation – literally

Diego Zuluaga // 21.09.2016
 
Economic debates are often presented as a contest between two opposing interest groups. Marxian socialism pitted capital against labour. …

Europe’s demographic timebomb

Philip Booth // 16.09.2016
This article is based on a presentation Prof Booth gave at the Autumn University of the Alliance of European Conservatives …

Does the destruction of brands benefit anyone?

Cécile Philippe // 31.05.2016
On 20th May, a law mandating the plain packaging of tobacco products came into force in France. Similar legislation has …

Tobacco harm reduction and the new TPD

25 May 2016
The new Tobacco Products Directive (TPD2) dramatically tightens regulation of cigarettes, rolling tobacco and e-cigarettes. Yet, it is unclear that it …

An early Christmas present for Scottish drinkers: ECJ rules against minimum alcohol pricing

Christopher Snowdon // 23.12.2015
The European Court of Justice has today ruled that minimum pricing for alcohol is illegal if less restrictive measures, such …