Countries with smaller governments grow faster.Tobacco taxes are the best way to cut smoking.Government regulation discourages entrepreneurshi****p.Award-winning investigative journalist Tom Bergin digs into eight mantras widely accepted by Western governments and, by talking to the people who promote those ideas and the workers, businesspeople and consumers who have felt their impacts, finds they often don't play out...

In April 2010, the world watched in alarm as BP's Macondo well suffered a fatal explosion and a catastrophic leak. Over the next three months, amid tense scenes of corporate and political finger-pointing, millions of barrels of crude oil dispersed across the Gulf of Mexico in what became one of the worst oil spills in history.But there is more to BP's story than this. Tom Bergin, an oil broker turned Reuters reporter, watched the 'two-pipeline company' of the early 1980s grow into ...

Brought to you by Penguin.Economic theories and models shape our everyday lives. They are relied on by politicians when tax rises or cuts are being considered. They inform debates about everything from bonuses for CEOs to minimum wage rates to the level of job protection enshrined in law. They determine what levels of tobacco or petrol duty are charged, and influence government approaches to issues as diverse as obesity and climate change.The question is: a...

Winner of the Richard A. Lester Award for the Outstanding Book in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics, Princeton UniversityAn Economist Best Economics and Business Book of the YearA Financial Times Best Economics Book of the YearInequality is one of our most urgent social problems. Curbed in the decades after World War II, it has recently returned with a vengeance. We all know the scale of the...

In September 2005, corporate South Africa was rocked by the violent murder of mining maverick Brett Kebble. In life, he was known as a billionaire patron of the arts, compassionate philanthropist, champion of black economic empowerment, urbane raconteur and generous host. But within six months of his death, Kebble was exposed as the architect of one of the biggest and most convoluted frauds seen by any stock exchange in the world, a flawed genius who lied and cheated and stole so cunningly...

Politicians, financiers and bureaucrats claim to believe in free competitive markets, yet they have built the most unfree market system ever created. In this Gilded Age, income is funnelled to the owners of property – financial, physical and intellectual – at the expense of society. Wages stagnate as labour markets are transformed by outsourcing, automation and the on-demand economy, generating more rental income while broadening the precariat.Now fully updated with an introduction...

Why are house prices in many advanced economies rising faster than incomes? Why isn't land and location taught or seen as important in modern economics? What is the relationship between the financial system and land?In this accessible but provocative guide to the economics of land and housing, the authors reveal how many of the key challenges facing modern economies - including housing crises, financial instability and growing inequalities - are intimately tied to the land economy....

'Free of jargon, obfuscation and interminable subordinate clauses, his prose is just the job' The TimesA fully updated and revised edition of the classic guide.The economy has never been so relevant to so many people as it is now. 'There's no such thing as a free lunch' is the one phrase everyone has heard from economics. But why not? What does economics tell us about the price of lunch - and everything else?Set out like a ...

The suddenness and depth of the recession has raised questions about the workability of capitalism not seen since the 1930s. One of the constraints on recovery is the growing belief that if the old model did not work there is no new one on offer. This book sets out to provide one, arguing that reconstructing a bust financial system is not just a technical question. It cannot be done without a wholescale revision of the wider system and values on which it is based. And fairness must be plac...

This is the definitive account of the Royal Bank of Scotland scandal.For a few brief months in 2007 and 2009, the Royal Bank of Scotland was the largest bank in the world. Then the Edinburgh-based giant - having rapidly grown its footprint to 55 countries and stretched its assets to £2.4 trillion under its hubristic and delinquent former boss Fred Goodwin - crashed to earth.In Shredded, Ian Fraser explores the series of cataclysmic misjudgments, ...

The state of the global economy affects every single one of us. With economic growth threatened by financial regulation and the East and West at competitive odds, the real solutions to global recession can only come through international co-operation. Featuring world leaders, Nobel Prize-winning economists, award-winning writers and opinion formers The Future of Money brings together the finest thinking to suggest solutions to this global predicament.

This book looks at how Ireland as a small open economy can prosper in the medium term. It contains recommendations from Irelands top economic and policy commentators for boosting and sustaining the post-crisis economy. The book is policy relevant accessible and written to stimulate public debate.