Think Tank Library

To help alleviate the crisis of confidence in Britain's liberalised energy market, Knowledge is power sets out a number of options to improve transparency for consumers and the market. As we enter an age of increasingly expensive energy, better consumer information is essential if we are to secure public support to meet the challenges of security of supply and decarbonisation. Whilst better market transparency for energy companies, especially new entrants, will help maintain competition and allow the lowest prices possible to be delivered to consumers.

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Blame for the economic crisis should not be put on greedy bankers, careless regulators, lax credit rating agencies; nor on excessive borrowing by the public. For they were all victims of a Myth: that low inflation would bring economic growth and financial stability. Lack of clarity between the necessity and sufficiency of inflation targets was compounded by the fact that the wrong type of inflation was being measured. The Myth led bankers to lend more, traders to risk more, regulators to relax more, homeowners to borrow more. But when the Myth collapsed, it took us all down with it.

The London stock market has always performed poorly under Labour Governments, But its performance under this Labour Government has been worse than ever before, falling by 26% in real terms since 1 May 1997. This is (barring Japan) the worst performance of any of the world's major stock markets over the period. John Littlewood shows how, in 1997, Gordon Brown benefited from a golden inheritance. But in 2007, he passed on a poisoned chalice. For his Government's policies have created unsustainable government deficits, undermined UK competitiveness, allowed asset bubbles to develop and permitted irresponsible risk-taking by banks to go unchecked. The prospects for the economy, and the stock market, are bleak.

Online advertising accounts for almost 9 percent of all advertising in the United States. This share is expected to increase as more media is consumed over the internet and as more advertisers shift spending to online technologies. The expansion of internet-based advertising is transforming the advertising business by providing more efficient methods of matching advertisers and consumers and is transforming the media business by providing a source of revenue for online media firms that compete with traditional media firms. The precipitous decline of the newspaper industry is one manifestation of the symbiotic relationship between online content and online advertising. Online-advertising is provided by a series of interlocking multi-sided platforms (also known as two-sided markets) that facilitate the matching of advertisers and consumers. These intermediaries increasingly make use of detailed individual data, predictive methods, and matching algorithms to create more efficient matches between consumers and advertisers. Some of their methods raise public policy issues that require balancing providing consumers more valuable advertising against the possible loss of valuable privacy.

Government attempts to prop up the UK banking sector have destroyed the foundations on which private capitalism is built. By refusing to allow market mechanisms to play a part in solving the crisis, the Government has (with the consent of the Opposition) ended private sector banking and with it a fi nancial structure which has prevailed in Britain and the West for 300 years. The State now controls the market; one of the many consequences will be slower economic growth for many years to come. This need not have happened. There was an alternative. Andrew Lilico, economist and international expert in financial regulation, shows how the crisis should have been handled - and suggests where we should go from here.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the various challenges facing European integration and the EU institutional architecture as result of the global financial crisis. The European integration process is not yet complete, both in terms of its content and geographical coverage. It can be viewed as a kind of intermediate hybrid between an international organization and a federation, subject to further evolution. This is also true of the Single European Market and the Economic and Monetary Union, which form the core of the EU economic architecture. Certain policy prerogatives (such as external trade, competition, and the Common Agriculture Policy) are delegated to the supranational level while others (such as financial supervision or fiscal policy) remain largely in the hands of national authorities.

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Even when backed by clear evidence, new technologies and practices inch their way too slowly through the vast web of structures that make up the National Health Service. This is one of the reasons our standards often fall below those of comparable countries. Data collected by the World Health Organisation shows that premature deaths from causes that are preventable with prompt and effective healthcare are higher in the UK than Germany, Canada, Australia and France. A lack of MRI and CT scanners can lead to long waits for diagnostic tests, while shortages in radiotherapy equipment are a factor in our comparatively poor cancer treatment. Among European countries, the UK is consistently below average in the adoption of new drugs for the treatment of certain common cancers. And within Britain, too, there is an unjustifiably wide variation in outcomes of care.

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Credible Energy Policy sets out why current energy policy is no longer fit for purpose, and provides a comprehensive overview of what is now required to address our ambitious climate change objectives, whilst maintaining security of supply.

Professor Helm examines the precarious position of our global gas supplies and draw out the implications for Britain in strategic gas storage, generation capacity and networks. It will also propose how government should set the overarching energy policy framework and explain why existing energy policy institutions need reform, and in particularly why Ofgem should be rolled up into an integrated single energy agency, charged with delivery.

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The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) links up to a third of general practice income to achievement against a series of quality indicators. While it has delivered benefits in the treatment of conditions included, the net benefit is unclear. There is evidence that the financial incentive is diverting attention away from other conditions and harming the relationship between GPs and patients.

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Open Europe has produced the first independent estimate of the cost and wider effects of the EU`s new package of climate change measures, currently under negotiation. The outcome of the package is of particular concern at a time when Europe stands on the brink of an economic slowdown, and in some member states, recession.

The plan is the most ambitious EU programme since the launch of the euro. We estimate that the cost of the package as a whole will be huge: more than 73 billion euro per year by 2020 for the EU 25, and £9bn per year for the UK.

Importantly, the study concludes that the EU`s proposals are an overpriced solution to climate change, largely because they artificially drive investment towards very high-cost methods of cutting carbon. This means we will pay far more than necessary in fighting climate change; or put another way, we could spend the same amount of money and reduce emissions far more.