The BBC holds a special place in the world of broadcasting. It derives its funding from a compulsory levy on people who may not even use the service. The protection it receives is justified on the grounds that it contributes to national welfare because of its role in ‘public service broadcasting’. The authors of this book argue that the BBC’s funding model is becoming untenable as technology changes. Furthermore, technology has also undermined the justification for government support for p...

Price controls across many sectors are currently being hotly debated. New controls in the housing market, more onerous minimum wages, minimum prices for alcohol, and freezes on energy prices are very high up the agenda of most politicians at the moment. Even without any further controls, wages, university fees, railway fares and many financial products already have their prices at least partly determined by politicians rather than by supply and demand in the market. Indeed, barely a sector...

Amidst the debates about ‘austerity’ a number of vital debates in public finance have been sidelined. Because the reductions in government spending – small though they have been so far- have been designed to reduce the government’s borrowing requirement, there has been little discussion of whether the size of the state should be reduced in order to facilitate long-run reductions in the burden of taxation. This book traces the history of the growth of the size of the state over the last 100...

"A truly excellent book that explains where our pandemic response went wrong, and how we can understand those failings using the tools of economics." —Tyler Cowen, Holbert L. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University and coauthor of the blog Marginal RevolutionHave you ever stopped to wonder why hand sanitizer was missing from your pharmacy for months after the COVID-19 pandemic hit? Why some employers and employees were arguing over workers bei...

How many times have you heard someone say there's nothing good to read? Unfortunately, We hear it way too often from know-it-alls who are sure all the great stories have gone the way of the dinosaurs. And that sends shivers down our backs.Nothing good to read. Good grief, is there a more depressing phrase than that? Well, there might be. Like, "The dog just ate my last pair of underwear" or "Didn't you notice the horrible fungus growing on that last piece of pepperoni befo...

Weird things happen on Halloween don't they? The imagination works overtime after all. But for Ruby Ryan it's just the beginning. A happy go lucky young nurse she hasn't yet met the man of her dreams, but at 23 there's plenty of time for all that and being chief bridesmaid at her best friend's up and coming wedding is the nearest Ruby wants to get to walking down the aisle for a very long time. She doesn't have a care in the world. But strange incidents she had casually brushed off start t...

George Bourne was one of the early American republic’s first immediate abolitionists, an influential figure who paved the way for the campaign against slavery in the antebellum period. His approach to reform was shaped by a conservative Protestant outlook that became increasingly hostile to Catholicism. In To Preach Deliverance to the Captives, Ryan C. McIlhenny examines the interplay of Bourne’s pioneering efforts in abolitionism and his intensely anti-Catholic views.McIl...

Talking of Dirty Laundry, Dates and “Noguchi” …Laugh Out Loud: A Collection of Funny PoemsIf you are determined to stay cool, and positive and survive the negativity of the news and people around you, then this is the book for you, read it and allow yourself to feel healthy emotional changes from the inside out to relieve stress, feel motivated, and find the bright side in any situation fast.Excerpt from Dirty Laundry:“She hung it out there on the line—as if nobody ...

Was inflation’s recent spike exacerbated by corporate greed? Do rent controls really help the needy? Are U.S. health care prices set in a Wild West marketplace? Do women get paid less than men for the same work, and do they pay more than men for the same products? The War on Prices is an eye-opening book that answers all these burning questions and more, as top economists debunk popular misconceptions about inflation, prices, and value.Market prices are under siege. The wa...