If you had bought South Sea Company shares 300 years ago today, on February 17, 1720, you would have paid the inflated price of about £175 per share. If you had sold those shares at any time before the end of September 1720, you would have made a fine profit, more than five times your […]

On July 6, 1988 European Commission President Jacques Delors propounded the hope that “Ten years hence, 80% of our economic legislation, and perhaps even our fiscal and social legislation as well, will be of Community origin.” The EU has not lost this ambition; this week Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, attempted to prevent […]

Classical economics holds that economic decisions are made by rational decision makers, using solid information and reason. Behavioral economics holds that many economic decisions are based on “cognitive biases” such as an aversion to losses that is stronger than the desire for profits. Richard Robb’s new book “Willful” holds that many decisions are made without […]

With U.S. debt at record levels, enthusiasm is mounting for a debt jubilee, in which part of or all the mountain of debt would be written off, to the great relief of debtors and the despair and probable bankruptcy of creditors. The jubilee’s proponents point out that debt jubilees have Biblical sanction, being a standard […]

The last five years have been marked in most Western societies by a populist revolt against the values of a leftist university-educated elite. That elite had appeared invulnerable, and increasingly separated from the rest of us, as Charles Murray described in his 2012 study “Coming Apart.” There are thus two questions to be answered: how […]

When William Pitt the younger made his great and optimistic Budget speech of 1792, he attributed Britain’s increased prosperity not to technological improvement but to the wealth-enhancing effect of the compounding increase in the country’s capital stock. Only a generation later, in the administration of Robert, Earl of Liverpool, was technological change given credit for […]

Three years into his administration, President Donald Trump is subject to a level of obloquy surprising given the U.S. economy’s benign performance. Not only his political opponents, but even some nominal “conservatives” want to impeach him. The reason is clear: rigid thinkers committed to the “icons” of past consensus policy loathe President Trump with unparalleled […]

Ten years ago this week, this column asked: “Will the Tens be another Bear decade?” predicting that the stock market in late 2019 would be lower than in late 2009. Alas, that prediction was complete rubbish. Yet the column’s economic forecast – that the early years of the Tens would be grim, but improvement would […]

Boris Johnson’s Conservative “Tory” party’s big victory in the British election December 12 was achieved by winning seats that had been Labour since 1987, 1935 and even 1922. His majority thus represents far more working-class voters from the North of England – and far fewer rich Londoners – than any previous Tory government. To survive […]

All 60 of the United States’ leading university endowments underperformed a cheap “tracker fund” over the past decade, according to a study reported in the Financial Times. The culprit is the “Yale Model” of university endowment investment, whereby they focus on private equity, hedge funds and unquoted investments rather than on ordinary stock markets. From […]