https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/Economy Class, the blog by David Chivers.en-GBhttps://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/the-uk-smoking-ban-can-paternalism-be/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/the-uk-smoking-ban-can-paternalism-be/Tue, 16 Apr 2024 04:41:00 -0700Every day I tell my toddler off for doing something he shouldn't. He has no idea why playing with plug sockets is bad but light switches are ok, or why running off into the middle…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/surge-pricing-wendys-and-fairness/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/surge-pricing-wendys-and-fairness/Fri, 01 Mar 2024 02:56:00 -0800The burger chain Wendy's has been in trouble over plans to introduce surge pricing. This is when prices adjust to meet demand, so you may end up paying more for your burger and…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/policies-for-young-that-will-never/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/policies-for-young-that-will-never/Tue, 25 Apr 2023 02:08:00 -0700The older you are, the more likely you are to vote. Young people simply don't turn up for elections. This relationship seems to hold across countries and time. It isn't so clear…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/is-greedflation-happening-im-sceptical/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/is-greedflation-happening-im-sceptical/Sat, 22 Apr 2023 03:32:00 -0700What is causing current inflation? There are a number of articles saying that rather than a wage-price spiral , it is being caused by companies increasing their profit margins. In…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/in-defence-of-midwit/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/in-defence-of-midwit/Fri, 31 Mar 2023 06:59:00 -0700You have probably seen the midwit meme on social media. It often looks something like this... The idea is to mock people who have overly complicated or counterintuitive takes. You…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/can-queuing-theory-explain-nhs-crisis/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/can-queuing-theory-explain-nhs-crisis/Tue, 22 Nov 2022 02:05:00 -0800The NHS is always in crisis . But I think with A&E waiting times pushing 12 hours, this certainly feels like crisis territory to me. So what is happening? Well it seems to be to…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/a-decade-of-bizare-uk-economic-policy/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/a-decade-of-bizare-uk-economic-policy/Fri, 14 Oct 2022 02:29:00 -0700If you want to beat the markets, the old adage of "buy low, sell high" is not a bad place to start. To sum up a decade of Conservative economic thinking, they appear to have gone…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/vibes-vs-size-bacon-and-lightbulbs-and/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/vibes-vs-size-bacon-and-lightbulbs-and/Sun, 09 Oct 2022 03:37:00 -0700Last week I was amazed to read an article in the Guardian which talked about a pub "cutting energy costs" by switching off their lights and using candles instead. Throughout the…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/why-did-drop-to-its-lowest-ever-level/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/why-did-drop-to-its-lowest-ever-level/Sun, 02 Oct 2022 02:57:00 -0700Right, I am not going to lie. To understand what happened last week is extremely difficult to explain as you need to understand a few things before we even get to fully understand…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/no-qe-did-not-lead-to-inflation/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/no-qe-did-not-lead-to-inflation/Mon, 11 Jul 2022 06:53:00 -0700Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output. Milton…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/the-economics-of-unions/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/the-economics-of-unions/Wed, 22 Jun 2022 05:40:00 -0700With the ongoing rail strikes I wanted to talk about the economics of unions. Why do some jobs have unions that you can join and others don't? There is a simple answer to this:…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/why-value-of-bitcoin-is-falling/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/why-value-of-bitcoin-is-falling/Mon, 20 Jun 2022 04:08:00 -0700When I was young, before I even knew what economics was, I would stare at the pink front page of the Financial Times, wondering why anyone would be interested in the merger of two…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/doves-hawks-and-politics-of-interest/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/doves-hawks-and-politics-of-interest/Thu, 16 Jun 2022 02:01:00 -0700Everything is political. This phrase annoys me. It is often used as a way for people to steer the direction of an argument towards something they would prefer to talk about:…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/the-ref-perfect-example-of-issues-with/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/the-ref-perfect-example-of-issues-with/Thu, 12 May 2022 03:17:00 -0700There was an old lady who swallowed a fly I don't know why she swallowed a fly - perhaps she'll die! I really dislike rankings. I feel they are a way to make subjective data seem…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/what-causes-red-tape/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/what-causes-red-tape/Tue, 10 May 2022 02:13:00 -0700Government plans to cut red tape, again. I mean, getting rid of excess bureaucracy seems like a no-brainer as by definition excess bureaucracy is well, excess. The more…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/nimbyism-who-has-right-to-decide-what/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/nimbyism-who-has-right-to-decide-what/Thu, 05 May 2022 09:13:00 -0700A Nimby is a person who opposes new developments in their local area, an acronym of Not In My Back Yard. The term has certainly taken off in recent years with debates about the…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/the-problem-with-being-anti-waste/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/the-problem-with-being-anti-waste/Wed, 04 May 2022 01:58:00 -0700Finish your dinner, some people are starving in the world. Although this phrase is often used by parents to try and emotionally manipulate their children into eating vegetables,…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/omission-bias-is-harmful-action-worse/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/omission-bias-is-harmful-action-worse/Tue, 22 Mar 2022 08:05:00 -0700You have probably seen the runaway trolley problem. You know the one where a trolley (not a shopping trolley in fact, but a tram) is destined to kill X amount of people. You can…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/vimes-boots-is-good-explanation-of/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/vimes-boots-is-good-explanation-of/Thu, 27 Jan 2022 03:23:00 -0800Jack Monroe has recently highlighted how the rise in inflation can hit the poorest in the economy hardest by looking at the recent rise in food costs. Given that we all consume a…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/bitcoin-and-financial-literacy/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/bitcoin-and-financial-literacy/Fri, 21 Jan 2022 04:36:00 -0800Will Bitcoin go “to the moon”? I am a bit sceptical myself. I would put it somewhere in the region of a 1-2% chance that it will break 1 million USD but I really have no idea.…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/the-economics-of-whether-we-should-pay/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/the-economics-of-whether-we-should-pay/Wed, 10 Nov 2021 02:52:00 -0800Should we pay MPs more? They are already on £80k a year which puts them in the top percentages of pay in the UK. For many, how much someone should get paid is a question of…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/infinite-growth-on-finite-planet/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/infinite-growth-on-finite-planet/Tue, 09 Nov 2021 03:43:00 -0800Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth on a planet with finite resources is either a madman or an economist - Sir David Attenborough Do you think we can get infinite…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/exponential-growth-is-hard-to/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/exponential-growth-is-hard-to/Fri, 28 May 2021 00:54:00 -0700According to Dominic Cummings' recent revelations, a lot of people in charge of the pandemic failed to grasp the idea of exponential growth. As Mike Bird says, we often ask kids…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/using-bayes-theorem-to-figure-out/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/using-bayes-theorem-to-figure-out/Mon, 19 Apr 2021 04:01:00 -0700An edited abstract of our book was published on Sunday and caused statisticians everywhere to lose their minds . One particular tweet has gone viral. The issue was due to the…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/the-curse-of-knowledge-are-you-being/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/the-curse-of-knowledge-are-you-being/Wed, 07 Apr 2021 03:40:00 -0700Everyone has been accused of being patronising at some point in their lives. Patronising, by the way, is when you... Ok, so this is a terrible joke but it does point to a problem:…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/why-deal-or-no-deal-should-be-cancelled/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/why-deal-or-no-deal-should-be-cancelled/Wed, 31 Mar 2021 02:09:00 -0700In the Autumn of 2005, Noel Edmonds would return to our screens with a new show called Deal or No Deal. Somehow the show managed to drag out the process of picking random numbers,…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/bitcoin-and-trust/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/bitcoin-and-trust/Sat, 27 Mar 2021 04:15:00 -0700If you ask most people what the £ is backed by, they will say "gold". There is a belief that somewhere, in the Bank of England, there is this huge vault of gold bars that you…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/misleading-words/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/misleading-words/Sun, 21 Mar 2021 14:32:00 -0700What is the definition of arachnophobia, equinophobia & hippophobia? If you said they are all fears relating to spiders, horses and hippopotamuses then you would be wrong. The…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/who-is-nick-j-cox-and-why-is-he-most/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/who-is-nick-j-cox-and-why-is-he-most/Tue, 16 Feb 2021 06:11:00 -0800If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants Isaac Newton This quote, possibly the first recorded humblebrag, is how we often think science progresses. It…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/the-face-mask-of-certainty-thought/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/the-face-mask-of-certainty-thought/Wed, 06 Jan 2021 03:39:00 -0800I was recently asked why I got into my research area. I can trace the exact moment to a 2nd-year political philosophy module at Manchester University by Stephen de Wijze. It was a…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/home-economics-were-bad-at-cooking-as/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/home-economics-were-bad-at-cooking-as/Thu, 17 Dec 2020 05:21:00 -0800The weekend newspaper fans across the kitchen table and the glossy supplement catches your eye. As you are perusing, you come across a recipe and suddenly get the idea stuck in…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/why-did-some-people-think-brexit-deal/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/why-did-some-people-think-brexit-deal/Fri, 11 Dec 2020 06:30:00 -0800A lot of people think free trade is all about tariffs. I think this is why some people thought the deal between the UK and EU would be the “easiest in human history”. The logic…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/an-economists-guide-to-christmas-not/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/an-economists-guide-to-christmas-not/Thu, 10 Dec 2020 06:48:00 -0800After discussing the idiosyncratic way I buy presents (more of which later) with Tom Chivers, he said: “ An economist's guide to Christmas would make a good book title”. To which…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/you-cant-blame-algorithm-levels-and/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/you-cant-blame-algorithm-levels-and/Tue, 18 Aug 2020 05:01:00 -0700You are at a stag do and in charge of paying the bill and you need to do long division which literally no one knows how to do by hand. So, you attempt to divide £2344 by 24 (lads)…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/why-do-we-still-have-journals/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/why-do-we-still-have-journals/Thu, 11 Jun 2020 02:09:00 -0700When academic journals first came into fashion, they were primarily a way to disseminate research. Unless you attended a lecture, there was no other way you could keep up to date…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/judging-bookcase-by-its-politician/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/judging-bookcase-by-its-politician/Tue, 05 May 2020 04:31:00 -0700Michael Gove’s bookcase has gained attention recently due to some controversial books which appeared on its shelves. Inevitably some people expressed concern that he would own…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/references-applications-and-monopsonies/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/references-applications-and-monopsonies/Wed, 22 Apr 2020 03:48:00 -0700Firstly, an important thing I want to make clear. I am more than happy to write references for my students and take great pleasure in seeing them get the job or master’s programme…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/how-ideas-spread-why-econ101ism-is/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/how-ideas-spread-why-econ101ism-is/Sat, 04 Apr 2020 02:37:00 -0700“ Alas , poor Yorick ! I knew him well” William Shakespeare, Hamlet Do you see a problem with the above quote? If you do, it is because you either know Hamlet very well or you…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/on-thinking-about-what-i-thought-about/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/on-thinking-about-what-i-thought-about/Fri, 27 Mar 2020 04:44:00 -0700On Monday the 16 th of March, the government announced that we should “avoid” pubs, restaurants and theatres. For many people, this seemed so blindingly obvious given the threat…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/whats-in-name-importance-of-names-in/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/whats-in-name-importance-of-names-in/Thu, 26 Mar 2020 07:32:00 -0700“What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet The above quote taken literally is something we could…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/is-it-possible-to-modify-football-so/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/is-it-possible-to-modify-football-so/Sun, 22 Mar 2020 07:17:00 -0700The basics of social distancing are that if you are symptom free, you can meet with people outside but have to be 2m apart. Also passing things to each other with our hands could…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/the-media-and-panic-buying/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/the-media-and-panic-buying/Fri, 20 Mar 2020 06:16:00 -0700The problem with seeing pictures of empty shelves is that it just makes panic buying worse. The media have an important role to play in this but first let's try and understand why…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/austerityif-you-care-about-defect-so/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/austerityif-you-care-about-defect-so/Wed, 10 Jan 2018 04:03:00 -0800Many economists have argued against undertaking austerity when the UK’s borrowing rates were so low (at the zero lower bound of interest rates). Austerity is all about getting the…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/this-letter-was-sent-to-guardian-in/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/this-letter-was-sent-to-guardian-in/Tue, 19 Dec 2017 02:33:00 -0800This letter was sent to the Guardian in response to Larry Elliott's article. It is less of a criticism of the reformers' 33 points (which I did not think were helpful to their…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/review-of-rethinking-economics/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/review-of-rethinking-economics/Thu, 23 Nov 2017 04:22:00 -0800Rethinking Economics is a group campaigning for a pluralist approach to economics. They have put together a book which contains a collection of short essays introducing various…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/journalism-which-misrepresents-academic/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/journalism-which-misrepresents-academic/Thu, 17 Nov 2016 05:41:00 -0800A friend of mine wrote a paper on the happiness of children. It got picked up in the media with headlines such as “Kids better off at nursery rather than staying at home with mum,…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/stop-hammering-nails-in-with-shoes-why_19/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/stop-hammering-nails-in-with-shoes-why_19/Sun, 19 Apr 2015 05:46:00 -0700If you watched the recent UK election debates you would have seen that the most pressing issue facing the UK appears to be tackling the UK debt. When we hear the word debt we have…https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/air-conditioning-is-useless-when-it-is/https://davidchivers.co.uk/blog/air-conditioning-is-useless-when-it-is/Wed, 01 Apr 2015 05:18:00 -0700George Osborne tweeted recently that zero inflation is " good news ". Prices not rising can only be a good thing surely? But if zero inflation is so good then why is the target…