If in doubt, the Old Left would nationalise or regulate. If in doubt the New Right would privatise or deregulate. And if in doubt, the soupy left-right blend that now unites us has its own default...

Soaring food prices have been hitting the headlines. Wheat recently reached new records, but in real terms (after adjusting for general inflation) it has only recently recovered to the levels it...

A couple of news stories today help illustrate some of the more unexpected consequences of the vast price rises some commodities have experienced over the past few years—caused largely by...

If Eugene Robinson's op-ed in the Washington Post today somewhat states the obvious, it's an obvious that needs stating: How are Obama and Clinton going to pay for universal health insurance if...

Various arms of government are tentatively beginning to ask what they can learn from behavioural economics. There seem to be two principle reasons for this. Firstly, there are various policies that...

How good are the forecasters? 45 leading banks and other financial institutions ended 2007 having all failed to make an accurate guess at the 3.1 per cent by which GDP rose during the year. (The...

The causes of the Irish economic miracle have been much analysed; less so its effects. John Murray Brown's cover story in the new issue of Prospect looks at the new breed of Irish rich: the men—and...

The market now laps onto so many shores that it can be odd to remember the horror provoked by the first wave of Reaganomics. Lewis Hyde's The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World,...

Looks like the Economist-sponsored debate at Gotham Hall in New York City was the place to be on Saturday evening. In the blue corner we had libertarian heavyweights (and Prospect contributors) Tyler...

First Drafts has a category called 'What we are reading'. This posting probably comes under the rubric 'what we are depilating'. For the last 25 years, I have gone to the same beauty salon on the...