Documents

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Insights into Regulation

Revisiting Adam Smith’s Four Principles of Taxation

In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith put forward four general principles that he judged a tax system should satisfy. While the economic system then was much smaller and much less complex than now – the revenue required by the state funded a much narrower range of activities – principles are relatively enduring across changes in contexts.

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Insights into Regulation

On tariffs and tanks – M. Bastiat vs. Mr Trump

Scaling geologic time to (say) one year, homo sapiens has existed for less than an hour. In that twinkling of an eye, we have developed some capacity for foresight – an enormous evolutionary leap in one of nature’s creatures.

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Insights into Regulation

The Costs of Change

“Change” was the slogan of the British Labour Party in the recent General Election. It certainly didn’t do serious damage to electoral prospects; but it

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Past Learnings

The Economists’ Onion

This piece in the Past Learnings Series is based on a hitherto unpublished internal Regulatory Policy Institute Paper dating from 2012.

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