While this blog usually offers a more light-hearted look at economics, this week a more serious tone seems appropriate. This Sunday marks the centenary of the end of hostilities in the First World War. Poignantly, this year is also one of every seven[1] where Remembrance Day falls on Remembrance Sunday, when ceremonies at London’s Cenotaph and at memorials around the world will commemorate the war dead. Everyone will mark this period of remembrance in their own way. In the UK,

Following on from last week’s TFiF, I’m also using a recent trip abroad as a hook. However, my trip wasn’t a regular holiday, but a one-year unpaid sabbatical, during which I travelled the world. This got me thinking about the costs and benefits of sabbaticals — something I probably should have considered before I decided to take one. Here’s what the literature has to say. Sabbaticals come in all forms, both in terms of length and substance. Although they've been

Three memories stand out from my recent holiday in Indonesia. The first: time slowing to a standstill as manta ray after manta ray glided past me in the waters of the Komodo National Park. The second: wondering how I managed to find my legs tangled over my head amid sounds from the rainforest, the smell of incense and a light breeze, as I did my first yoga class in 15 years. The third: feeling despondent about how divisive politics have

What do economists know about relationships? After all, you “Can’t buy me love” as the Beatles said. But perhaps listening to an economist’s views isn’t so crazy. Ultimately, many economic models of relationships are founded on the same key theme as any Mills & Boon novel — that is, the idea that ‘coupling up’ provides some kind of additional benefit to both parties.[1] To the average paperback writer, this benefit might simply be the additional joy that a relationship can

At Fathom, writing the TFiF blog is always greeted with a mixture of anticipation and dread. Picking a suitable topic tends to be half the struggle. I would obviously love to write exclusively, as I did last time, about exotic holidays, but I’ll leave this privilege to one of my colleagues returning from a one-year sabbatical trip around the world. Not that I’m jealous (I am!), but the hard-biting reality of middle agedness tends to steer me towards a choice

Visiting family last weekend, I found myself having to answer a question that I’ve heard on a regular basis since my engagement a little over two years ago, and which has become even more pressing in the eyes of my mother-in-law since the wedding last month: do I intend to change my surname? The answer is “no”. I’m not entirely sure why, and I’m even less sure how to explain that to my mother-in-law. Perhaps I’ve over-binged on the television

In Tupac Shakur’s social justice battle cry, Changes, the late rapper criticised his government’s priorities: “instead of a war on poverty, they got a war on drugs, so the police can bother me”. More than twenty years after his death, the war on drugs — or poverty for that matter — is little closer to being won.[1]. Meanwhile, the American government has fired the opening salvo in a different kind of battle: one against existing trade arrangements. Donald Trump is

The Brits love talking about the weather. That fact, one would imagine, is covered in the ‘culture’ section of any decent guidebook aimed at foreign visitors to these islands. According to a survey carried out by the BBC, a staggering 94% of us will have talked about the weather within the past six hours alone. For my grandmother, the weather was central to the success or failure of any occasion. “Haven’t we been fortunate with the weather?” she was often

When Gandalf picks the Ring out of the fire and shows it to Frodo, words glow into life that were etched into the gold.[1] Frodo says: “I cannot read the fiery letters”. Gandalf explains that they are written in an ancient script, which he renders in the common speech as: “One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.” This wasn’t just a pretty trinket, capable

Since it started in 1995 as a website which only sold books, Amazon has morphed into a $1 trillion, global e-commerce behemoth, or ‘an everything store’ realising the vision founder Jeff Bezos had for the company when he started it from his garage. Much like a number of the world’s biggest brands, including Apple and Microsoft, Amazon had humble origins. In those early days, the power required to run early vintages of what would eventually become the Amazon servers meant