A friend sent me a copy of The End of Food, by Paul Roberts, with the suggestion that I read it. It arrived from Amazon with a couple of coupons tucked away in the package, from McDonald’s, for two new products: chicken for breakfast, chicken...

Those who think that relatively independent central banking is crucial to maintaining order in the modern world must be discouraged by the news from Washington these days. It was the House of Representatives that this week made headlines. Its...

A prominent American working as adviser to a foreign government successfully bargains for the details of a new constitution – while quietly arranging a lucrative deal for himself with a foreign company operating in his client state under the new...

Long before the Berlin Wall came down, there was May Day in New York.  In the flow of history these last forty years or so there have been many other signposts. But it is May 1, 1975, that stands out in memory as a moment in which it became clear that...

Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel Prize raised an interesting question. Who’s the most famous female economist in the profession today? Ostrom’s influence, via her field work on informal governing coalitions, had been greatest among political scientists. She...

When the World Trade Organization negotiations broke down in July 2008, the global financial crisis was so quickly upon us – October panic, bailout, US election, stimulus package – that it’s easy to forget that the Doha Round didn’t end after...