Economics is the study of trade-offs. How much of something we want are we prepared to give up in order to get one unit of something else we want? And how much must we give up? Those trade-offs change over time – and particularly in extraordinary times like these. A previous TFiF looked at how much we’d need to be compensated to give up various forms of social media and other online resources. It is extremely likely that those metrics

We are living in unprecedented times, ones that we will be telling our grandchildren about in years to come. In an effort to stem the spread of the devastating COVID-19 around the world, our leisure time has temporarily, but considerably changed. There are no more marathon training long runs, no more all-nighters at the pub, no more Premier League Super Sundays to watch (so yes, you actually have to talk to your partner on a Sunday), and the brakes have

Our hands have probably never been cleaner. The spread of the novel coronavirus over the past couple of months has led to nothing short of a ‘run’ on hand sanitiser, as seen by early morning queues outside your local Superdrug. A number of interesting economic phenomena can be observed from market pricing, consumer stockpiling, and the government’s response. In markets with more flexible price structures such as Amazon, an increase in the price of hand sanitiser reflects a sudden shift

“One more episode and then I’ll go to sleep” — we’ve all been there. You watch the next episode, it ends on a cruelly suspenseful cliffhanger and before you know it it’s 3am and coffee is your only means of surviving the following day at work. Streaming of TV shows and movies has become a global phenomenon, and for the first time, in 2018, became the most used medium for viewing content, according to a recent report from PwC. Netflix

Spearheaded by huge youth movements such as the global climate strikes led by Greta Thunberg, the climate change debate looks set to be one of the big issues of this decade. And, as with most promising trends set by young people, baby boomers and large institutions are scrambling to catch up. So too the financial sector; ‘ESG’ (Environmental-Social-Governance) is the new buzzword for investors and managers alike, with ESG-related data offerings, seminars, conferences and news articles springing up like mushrooms.

In his 1999 paper: ‘Japanese Monetary Policy: A Case of Self-Induced Paralysis?', Ben Bernanke stated: “I tend to agree with the conventional wisdom that attributes much of Japan’s current dilemma to exceptionally poor monetary policy-making over the past fifteen years”. In 2006, Bernanke was appointed as Fed Chair, where he remained through the Great Financial Crisis and the transition into the low-rate, Japan-style new normal thereafter, until 2014. The kind of finger-wagging that bien-pensants like Bernanke were directing at Japan

As I write this post, I must admit that I’m doing so in extreme comfort. I slept an extra hour and a half; I had my breakfast at the kitchen table while I checked some emails; and I’m infinitely more relaxed in my joggers than I am in my jeans. This isn’t because Fathom’s dress code and working environment has become extremely lax in the last few months. Rather it’s because I’m working from the comfort of my own home.

I’ve always enjoyed a good story. As a young boy I loved mythology and epic tales in all their forms. I liked to decipher their hidden meanings, unpick the allegories and catch a glimpse of how the societies, values and norms of those times differed from today. Or, indeed, how they didn’t. As I grew up, this fascination morphed into a passion for history and economics as gateways to a life-long journey of self-discovery; of learning about the drivers of

The UK will leave the European Union later today, bringing an end to years of acrimony, confusion and inflamed passions. It could make a good topic for today’s blog post, but instead, I opt for something much easier and less emotive: debunking some of the fundamental beliefs underpinning capitalism. Controversial, perhaps, but the assumptions that humans are rational, and are driven by a desire to maximise income and consumption have been disproven by various studies, which have been praised by

Fathom is about to embark on another major consultancy project. This isn’t a brag — or not mainly. It’s a note about what — I’ve come to realise over the years — consultancy really is, at least the way we do it. [1] The project involves gathering and cleaning tons of data, reading piles of learned papers, defining the question as tightly as possible in the light of all that (the question being rather loosely defined at present), designing an