Economists believe that, with proper scientific understanding and analysis, they can make policy recommendations to governments that will improve the stability, efficiency, and operation of economic life.

Good to see that some are grasping this simple concept: Wes Streeting has ordered a “high-stakes” reorganisation of the NHS that will scrap 10,000 jobs in an attempt to free up cash for frontline care.

We can’t predict football matches, so why think we can predict the economy? The outcome of a match depends on so many factors: the teams’ structure and support, the players’ motivation, skill health, energy, confidence, ability to spot opportunities, and luck in taking them — and more.

We spent a decade making the case that the personal allowance - for both NI (both types) and income tax - should be whatever the full year, full time minimum wage income is. We even won the case intellectually but of course by the time it was phased in inflation had moved the target beyond what happened.

Dear Prime Minister,

I am writing to you in my capacity as Director of Public Affairs of the Adam Smith Institute, a leading free market think tank, to congratulate you on abolishing the Payment Systems Regulator.

Mathematics can help economists describe the patterns they see in economic statistics such as total investment, consumption, growth, inflation, and unemployment. They formulate equations to show the correlations between these total (or ‘aggregate’) measures.

The grand thing about markets is not, in fact, that people can profit from doing the right thing well. Rather, it’s the firm thwack in the face people get from doing the wrong thing badly.

In some circles profit is almost a dirty word. It conjures up fat capitalists sucking up the livelihood of poorer people in order to stuff their pockets and make themselves fabulously wealthy.

Natural scientists search for patterns and correlations in the data that they compile from systematic experimentation and observation of events. Having measured the data and identified these relationships, they can then make predictions that help human beings understand and control the world they live in.

Why has the civil service grown so big — but not more productive?The problems are not new, and governments have been vowing to streamline Whitehall for decades. But according to one expert, the central problem is ‘there is no one in charge’

It’s been a rough couple of days for the US stock market - MAG7 (a combination of the top 7 tech companies) sold off almost $1.7 trillion in stock over the past week. The NASDAQ’s down too, by almost 13% - this is the result of tariffs, something Adam Smith was warning about all the way back in the 1770s.