Back catalogue

9 April 2003   Here is a short piece showing how Saddam wrecked the Iraqi economy, and how good the potential is now for Iraq

14 May 2003  Terrorist networks are in the news again. Here is a paper about how the medieval Inquisition learned how to suppress heresy effectively.  Modern mathematical techniques of graph theory describe different kinds of social networks on which disease/heresy/ideas might spread.  These show why initially the Inquisition failed, and why it was then much more successful

4 June 2003  Here is an article published in the Guardian newspaper on why the British are right to be sceptical about the Euro

11 August 2003  Ever wondered about the relative standings of British universities?  This paper shows there are 4 distinct groups - headed by a small elite, much smaller than most people think

21 November 2003  The state has taken an ever increasing role in the economy throughout the 20th century.  It is by no means clear that this social democratic ideal has achieved its aims.  This paper was published in September by the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Associations (ACEVO) as part of a pamphlet arguing that state activities at present provided by a monopoly should be opened up to competition, not from the free market but from the voluntary ('third') sector.

25 November 2003  Economics coverage in the media is dominated by endless dissection of the latest set of economic data. But how reliable is such data? Much economic data is not like data from the natural sciences, but is measured with error. Our picture of where we think the economy has been at any particular moment can change over time.  Here is an article on this published in the Sunday Times on 1 November.