Tim Harford - Economy

Can economic growth still make us happy? | Tim Harford

Richard Easterlin died in December at the age of 98. He’s been called “the father of happiness economics”, and it’s hard to disagree. Fifty years ago, after struggling to find an economics journal with any interest in the topic, Easterlin published an article titled “Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot?” It planted the seeds…

Cautionary Tales – the Nursery Rhyme that Ruined a Rock Band | Tim Harford

"Down Under" was huge. This jokey ode to legendary Australian wanderlust helped Men at Work win a Grammy and was a key part of the band's creative legacy. It had also been earning "Men At Work" a steady stream of royalties for nearly 30 years, when a game show pointed out the song's subtle link with…

Want to change? Consider your situation | Tim Harford

Imagine that a certain person — let’s call them Robin — is walking across a college campus when they pass a doorway and notice a man slumped on the ground. The man coughs and moans as Robin passes. Will Robin stop and help? To answer the question, we might want to know more about Robin.…

Cautionary Tales – Dr Brinkley’s Miracle Cure for Impotence | Tim Harford

Cautionary Conversation: In the 1920s, a conman convinced America that goat testicles were the secret to male virility. Tim Harford and Dr Kate Lister (Betwixt the Sheets podcast) dive into the bizarre and grisly tale of "Doctor" John Brinkley - a snake oil salesman who successfully mobilised the power of radio marketing. Brinkley built an…

Cautionary Tales – The Thrill and the Drop: A First Date Rollercoaster | Tim Harford

Leah Washington and her new boyfriend Joe Pugh are on their first day out together. They're at Alton Towers theme park, where they've chosen to ride the "Smiler" rollercoaster: a terrifying tangle of track that loops and swoops through a world-record 14 inversions. Leah and Joe are seated right at the front of the train,…

Do you want the good feedback, or the bad feedback? | Tim Harford

Rarely a day goes by that I don’t look out of my window to notice a car travelling east down my quiet little street. That is unremarkable, you might think — except that the street is one-way, running west. The street doesn’t function as a cut-through, so my guess is that these drivers aren’t flouting…

Cautionary Tales – The Widow Who Disrupted Champagne | Tim Harford

Cautionary Conversation: You may be surprised to learn that champagne as we know it today was invented by a nineteenth-century businesswoman. Tim Harford is joined by Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business and the host of The Unshakeables podcast, to explore the story of the trailblazing Widow Clicquot - aka La Veuve Clicquot. Tim and…

Cautionary Tales – Disaster Favours the Daring: Shipwreck at Honda Point | Tim Harford

This episode is released exclusively on Pushkin+. Episodes are released on the main feed each Friday. In 1923, legendary navigator Captain Dolly Hunter led a squadron of warships into America's worst peacetime naval catastrophe. The mission was supposed to be a speed trial, a display of the squadron's skill. But it ended in a maritime pile-up,…

Cautionary Tales – The Night of the Mugger | Tim Harford

Winston Trew has just been arrested for mugging. It's 1972, and the crime has recently made its way to Britain from the United States. Dangerous thugs, replicating their American counterparts, have made the city of London their hunting ground - so Winston's eventual conviction is a win for the police and the press. The problem is,…

Cautionary Tales – Missing on “Dead Mountain”: A cold war cold case | Tim Harford

In the bleak Russian winter of 1959, nine experienced hikers set out on an expedition. None of them made it back alive. When their campsite was finally discovered, it told a chilling story: tents slashed open, bodies scattered across the snow. The hikers' injuries were as baffling as they were gruesome. One had had his…

The truth about the forecasting paradox | Tim Harford

Here’s the problem with forecasts: some of them are right, and some of them are wrong, and by the time we find out which is which, it’s too late. This leads to what we might call the forecasting paradox: the test of a useful forecast is not whether it turns out to be accurate, but…

What if DogeCoin became the official US currency? Your strange economics questions, answered. | Tim Harford

What if the total sum of wealth in the world was immediately and simultaneously redistributed equally among the six billion adult people in the world? — Bezz

Cautionary Tales – Frozen in a Burning 747 (Tenerife Air Disaster 2) | Tim Harford

Two airplanes have just collided on the runway at Tenerife Airport. While no one on the Amsterdam-bound KLM plane survives the resulting fireball, 71 Pan-Am pas

Cautionary Tales – “Captain Kirk forgot to put the machine on stun.” | Tim Harford

This episode is released exclusively on Pushkin+. Episodes are released on the main feed each Friday. Lying on the cold metal table, Voyne Ray Cox knew the d

What vaccine hesitancy teaches us about politics | Tim Harford

Robert F Kennedy Jr is a man best known for his years of tireless work undermining public confidence in vaccines, and repeating long-debunked claims about their

Cautionary Tales – Cleared For Take-Off? (Tenerife Air Disaster 1) | Tim Harford

“Evacuate the airport, we’ve planted bombs,” a terrorist tells the telephone operator at the airport in Gran Canaria, in 1977. By the end of that day, 583

Cautionary Tales – Do NOT Pass Go! (Classic) | Tim Harford

Cautionary Tales returns with brand new episodes on January 10th. Lizzie J. Magie (played by Helena Bonham Carter) should be celebrated as the inventor

High growth doesn’t tell the story of the US economy | Tim Harford

Bill Clinton’s election strategist James Carville wanted his 1992 presidential campaign to focus on three simple messages. But one of them has transcended its

Cautionary Tales – Demonising Dungeons and Dragons (Classic) | Tim Harford

When James Dallas Egbert III was reported missing from his college dorm in 1979, one of America's most flamboyant private detectives was summoned to solve the c

Why are governments so bad at problem solving? | Tim Harford

The democratic world is stuck in a self-destructive, self-reinforcing loop: unforced policy errors lead to desperate gambles both by politicians and voters, lea

What can we learn from fraud and folly? | Tim Harford

The Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, for work that “makes you laugh, then makes you think”, came and went this year, with a clutch of worthy winners. I must report,

The games I’ll be playing this Christmas | Tim Harford

There are at least two kinds of games, the religious scholar James Carse explained: “One could be called finite; the other infinite. A finite game is played f

Cautionary Tales – Captain Coward and the Blame Game | Tim Harford

Off the coast of an Italian island, an enormous cruise ship - seventeen floors high, three soccer pitches long - is tilting noticeably to one side. The local ma

My epic, 40-year Dungeons & Dragons odyssey | Tim Harford

Editor’s note: This story is presented in a choose-your-own-path style. If you happen to have a D20 on hand, feel free to roll for your choices. In 1984,

‘Known unknowns’, or how to plug the gaps in public research | Tim Harford

In 1979, Archie Cochrane published an essay chastising (not for the first time) his fellow doctors. “It is surely a great criticism of our profession,” he w

Where to find me these days | Tim Harford

The simplest and most reliable way to see everything I create is here on this blog, via RSS or email. (I don't share your email or use it for any other purpose.

Cautionary Questions – RoboPod and the Perpetual Money Machine | Tim Harford

Thanks for your questions - fielded this time with the able assistance of Jacob Goldstein, the author of Money: The True Story of a Made Up Thing.

How to give a good speech | Tim Harford

There are many ways to give a terrible speech. The chief executive who pulls out a sheaf of densely written text and robotically reads it aloud. The management

Beard taxes and other lessons for Rachel Reeves | Tim Harford

When Ernest Borgnine auditioned for the title role of Marty, he knew this could be his big break. Typecast as a bit-part thug, Borgnine was nearly 40, losing hi

If I want to get fitter, should I wear a fitness watch? | Tim Harford

We have a tendency to sleepwalk into adopting new technologies, and my new fitness-tracking watch is no exception. Ever the late adopter, I bought an entry-leve

Cautionary Tales – Darwin’s Grandpa and the Art of Sex Appeal | Tim Harford

Charles Darwin was stumped by peacocks. According to his theory of evolution, some creatures were better equipped to survive in their particular environment tha

Trick questions, first instincts, and the benefits of thinking twice | Tim Harford

A first impression suggests that there is nothing to be gained from reading Alex Bellos’s new book of puzzles, Think Twice (Puzzle me Twice in the US), except

Cautionary Tales – Murder at Halloween: The Edinburgh Body Snatchers | Tim Harford

In 1827, Edinburgh, Scotland was a world centre for anatomical study, but there was a shortage of cadavers for medical students to dissect. Two men, William Bur

Should everyone earn their pay rise? | Tim Harford

Mozart and Haydn were composing string quartets a quarter of a millennium ago, when the industrial revolution was in its infancy. Since then, the scale of the w

My biggest productivity mistake | Tim Harford

From time to time, my editor will suggest that I write a column about how to be more productive. It’s a sure way to trigger imposter syndrome because, whethe

How a mind-boggling device changed economic history | Tim Harford

Cautionary Tales – The Poet who Toppled the British Empire | Tim Harford

India, 1930. Sarojini Naidu is marching towards a British-controlled saltwork; behind her is a long column of protestors all dressed in white. The great ca

What we can and can’t say about what we do and don’t know | Tim Harford

Earlier in the summer, the Democratic party and its supporters faced a difficult decision: should they gently but firmly sideline President Joe Biden from the 2

Misinformed about misinformation | Tim Harford

After a spasm of concern about the role of misinformation in fuelling racist riots in England, don’t expect things to calm down: the US election is approachin

Cautionary Tales – Reason, Wrath and Rebellion on the High Seas | Tim Harford

Early morning, April 1789. Captain Bligh is abruptly dragged from his cabin. Wrists bound, bayonet pressed to his chest, he and a few loyal sailors are forced i