The latest blog from the RPI explores the knowledge problem, tracing insights from Adam Smith to Hayek and what they mean for central planning and policy.

Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, published in 1759, explores human nature and moral judgement through the concept of a spectator who imagines the feelings and actions of others. It introduces the Impartial Spectator, a tool for self-evaluation. Smith’s insights, supported by modern neuroscience, inform our understanding of morality and community.

Entrepreneurship is something of a ‘ghost in the machine’ so far as most economic theorising is concerned.  It’s widely mentioned and tends to be encouraged by politicians, but detailed analysis of the concept is largely missing from standard economics.  So, we ask:   what is its nature, why is it important, and what (very briefly) might be done to encourage it?

A quick web-search for the meaning of the word elegant yields the following (from Oxford languages): Adjective : (1) graceful and stylish in appearance or

We have written before about the need for effortful and holistic thinking in the context of global decarbonisation, and about the perils of disconnecting local actions from global outcomes by retreat into a ‘net-zero in one country’ mindset. In this RPI Insights blog we highlight the dangers of partial thinking associated with indulgence of the false prophet of universal technology solution(s), blindness to potential ‘concentration risk’ and the resulting creation of systemic vulnerabilities, inadequate thinking around the physical resilience of energy infrastructure in the face of a changing climate, and reluctance to acknowledge either the regional realpolitik of the energy transition or the implicit policy tensions, uncertainties, and trade-offs around how it unfolds.

Policy debates about the burden of regulation have tended to focus on estimates of administrative costs imposed upon firms and have tended to rely on an assumption that simply eliminating some of the regulations (“cutting red tape”) will lead to significant reductions in the costs imposed. Here, the Insights Team take a different perspective, recalling both RPI empirical research on these issues for the UK Cabinet Office nearly 20 years ago and the earlier “Penrose Effect”, named after Professor Edith Penrose. They argue that much more substantive effects arise from poorly considered and conducted changes in regulations in consequence of their increased calls on limited senior management bandwidth available for addressing the challenges involved in investing, innovating and expanding a business.