Undercover Economist

Moving on

Tim Harford — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 10:27:13 +0000

You may have noticed that this blog has gone rather quiet while I work on my next book – sorry. The FT is going to mothball it, which seems reasonable.

So – thanks for following so far. If you’d like to keep going, here’s what to do:

Tuesday archive : If the price is right

Tim Harford — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 23:01:32 +0000

From 8th July, 2006.

If you want to be rich, you can try to set up a brilliantly successful company. Or you can steal money. Trans-parency International, the corruption watchdog, has estimated that Mohamed Suharto embezzled up to $35bn when he was Indonesia’s president, a figure that is in the same league as the entrepreneurial fortunes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. On a humbler scale, we all face the same choice. We can try to earn money by doing something useful, or we can try to steal or extort it from other people. A society where most people are doing something useful has a good chance of being rich; a society full of corruption will be poor.

Where you can find me

Tim Harford — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 13:02:35 +0000

You may have noticed that this blog has gone rather quiet while I work on my next book – sorry. The FT is going to mothball it, which seems reasonable.

So – thanks for following so far. If you’d like to keep going, here’s what to do:

Undercover Economist: A sense of fair play does pay

Tim Harford — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 02:07:38 +0000

I recently had the dubious pleasure of having to deal with someone who is successful and indeed popular, and yet a stubborn, selfish bully when he thinks nobody is looking. It moved me to speculate on an old question: do nice guys finish first, or last?

The remainder of the article can be read here. Please post comments below.

Tuesday archive : Schoolboy error

Tim Harford — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 23:01:28 +0000

From 15th July, 2006.

These days schools are trying to outlaw the unhealthy options, but some markets are irrepressible. William Guntrip is a 13-year-old boy whose Northamptonshire school banished vending machines and tuck shop food in favour of nutritious offerings at the canteen. Guntrip spotted a market opportunity and has been buying soft drinks and sweets and reselling them in his school playground. The school is trying to stop him and claims that most students are happy with the new regime, although if that was true then Guntrip wouldn’t be making £50 a day.

Undercover Economist: Stimulating debate

Gino de la Paz — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 01:27:30 +0000

Should the government hire people to bury banknotes down disused mine shafts, thus stimulating the private sector to dig them up again? Keynes argued that there were circumstances in which even government spending as wasteful as this could be economically worthwhile, and ever since he did, people have been tying themselves in knots about how fiscal stimulus actually works.

The remainder of the article can be read here. Please post comments below.

Tuesday archive: Keep them guessing

Tim Harford — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 23:10:32 +0000

From 17th June, 2006:

Penalties pit the goalkeeper against a lone striker in a mentally demanding contest. Once the penalty-taker strikes the ball, it takes 0.3 seconds to hit the back of the net – unless the goalkeeper can somehow get his body in the way. That is simply not enough time for the keeper to pick out the trajectory of the ball and intercept it. He must guess where the striker will shoot and move just as the ball is being struck. If Lehmann had not guessed correctly, he wouldn’t have been a hero.

Undercover Economist: Happiness rethink

Tim Harford — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 23:33:30 +0000

For many years the received wisdom in economics has been much the same as that in Buddhism: money doesn’t make you happy (see, for instance, “The Seven Secrets of a Happy Life”, FT Weekend Magazine, August 28/29).

The remainder of the article can be read here. Please post comments below.

Tuesday archive: The flight of the humble pea

Tim Harford — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 23:10:16 +0000

From 10th June, 2006:

I am becoming a dab hand at turnip soup now that Family Harford eschews supermarket mange-tout in favour of a weekly organic box. I have to confess that I miss the marvellous mange-tout, bursting with freshness and rushed to me straight from Nairobi in a battered old 747.

Undercover Economist: Attested development

Tim Harford — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 23:27:57 +0000

The moral case for doing more to help the very poor is unanswerable. The practical case is more problematic: much foreign aid has been spent poorly in the past and we still have plenty to learn.

The remainder of the article can be read here. Please post comments below.