Skip to content

Blog

Your blog category

Effects of Minimum Wage laws

  • by

When analysing the effect of a National Minimum Wage (NMW), the first point to consider is whether the mandatory NMW is higher or lower than the market wage for the same work in the same location.   Setting a national level minimum wage is therefore problematic, in that the market wage will be different in different areas of the country.  For example, according to the government (Francis-Devine, 2025) the median wage in London is 30%… Read More »Effects of Minimum Wage laws

Green Capitalism?

  • by

Is Green Capitalism a Contradiction in Terms? Certain voices lay the blame for the incipient climate crisis at the door of capitalism. In this view, it is the very system of capitalist economics which is the proximate cause of the pervasive environmental degradation, which poses a threat to future food security, survival of animal species, etc. I have personally spoken to people at environmental events who hold this view. Perhaps you believe this environmental crisis… Read More »Green Capitalism?

The Paradox of Value

  • by

There is an apparent paradox in the relative values of water and diamonds, which has been analysed by numerous authors over the centuries, including Plato, Adam Smith and John Locke. This so-called “paradox of value” notes that while water is essential to life and diamonds are not, the market price of diamonds is strangely far higher than that of water. A trivial challenge to the conventional explanations from economists, is that the units chosen to… Read More »The Paradox of Value