February 2009 – Dr Oliver Hartwich

Business Spectator

Still no life on Mars

23 February 2009

In Germany, but not only there, the economic ideas of the 1970s are celebrating a revival. But why would anyone want to retry the old recipes for more regulation and fiscal stimulus when they so spectacularly failed back then? It may well turn out that watching Life on Mars is a better way to indulge in 1970s nostalgia.

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Ideas@TheCentre

Rational thieves to go out of business

20 February 2009

Stealing a car is perhaps not the most obvious activity that economists would pay attention to. But it turns out that car theft is the perfect example to show how people react to incentives.

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Die Welt

Spurensuche in der Asche

16 February 2009

Die schweren Buschbrände, die letzte Woche im australischen Bundesstaat Victoria wüteten, haben nicht nur 181 Menschenleben gekostet, 1800 Häuser zerstört und 7500 Menschen zu Obdachlosen gemacht. Sie haben auch bei nicht unmittelbar betroffenen Australiern große Verunsicherung ausgelöst. Während die letzten Brände immer noch nicht gelöscht sind, beginnt die Aufarbeitung einer der schlimmsten Naturkatastrophen in der Geschichte des Fünften Kontinents.

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Other publications

Rushing to spend like Britain could leave us out in the cold

16 February 2009

So is Australia really just a warmer version of England, as the immigration officer suggested to me 10 years ago?

Probably not yet, if simply for the fact that in the past decade Australia has avoided the worst mistakes made in Britain. But if Rudd continues his New Labour-like policies, Australia may well become another Britain, if only without the snow.

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