This book reviews and interprets the literature that examines the design of regulatory policy when the regulator's knowledge of the relevant environment is limited. It will be useful to professional economists wishing to keep up with the development of their science.

A thoroughly revised and updated edition of the leading textbook on government and business policy, presenting the key principles underlying sound regulatory and antitrust policy.Regulation and antitrust are key elements of government policy. This new edition of the leading textbook on government and business policy explains how the latest theoretical and empirical economic tools can be employed to analyze pressing regulatory and antitrust issues. The book departs ...

Since the legalisation of off-course cash betting in 1960, and the rise of varying forms of gambling, the British have come to be known as a nation of gamblers. Until this study was published in 1976, barely any evidence existed against which to assess the claim that gambling had become a major social problem. The authors present data drawn from area surveys carried out in Swansea, Sheffield, Wanstead and Woodford, and explore how well previous sociological theories of gambling agree with ...

A powerful exploration of how economic thinking has infiltrated every aspect of modern life, even our understanding of who we are and what it means to be a person.Economics is the academic success story of the 20th century, a potent force not just in markets and government, but in our everyday lives. It affects our decisions as consumers, of course, but also our education, our health, our social lives and our family relationships. In his trenchant book, Philip Rosco...

Why is marriage worth £200,000 a year?Why will having children make you unhappy?Why does happiness from winning the lottery take two years to arrive?Why does time heal the pain of divorce or the death of a loved one – but not unemployment?Everybody wants to be happy. But how much happiness – precisely – will each life choice bring? Should I get married? Am I really going to feel happy about the career that I picked? How can we decide not only which choice is bet...

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license.Gambling is both a multi-billion-dollar international industry and a ubiquitous social and cultural phenomenon. It is also undergoing significant change, with new products and technologies, regulatory models, changing public attitudes and the sheer scale of the gambling enterprise necessitating innovati...

The baby boom of 1945-65 produced the biggest, richest generation that Britain has ever known. Today, at the peak of their power and wealth, baby boomers now run the country; by virtue of their sheer demographic power, they have fashioned the world around them in a way that meets all of their housing, healthcare, and financial needs. In this original and provocative book, David Willetts shows how the baby boomer generation has attained this position at the expense of their children. Social...

Mediation is a process that can be used to resolve conflict in many different dispute contexts. This book focuses on the essential skills and strategies needed by any mediator to be successful in their work.Tony Whatling draws on his extensive experience in the field of mediation to explain the range of skills and strategies that are commonly used, as well as why you would use different skills and when they are best employed. The author shows how, by adopting these techniques, a me...

What do insects, the weather and chaos theory have to do with the economy? According to Paul Ormerod, everything.The economy is like society itself, he argues: a complex system living on the edge of chaos. Conventional economics has always failed to predict and manage its fluctuations. Governments and businesses need to adopt quite different mindsets and less heavy-handed approaches. Hence 'Butterfly Economics'.'A fascinating and entertaining introduction to the economics o...

It is commonplace to say that criminals pay their debt to society by spending time in prison, but what is a “debt to society”? How is crime understood as a debt? How has time become the equivalent for crime? And how does criminal debt relate to the kind of debt held by consumers and university students?In Debt to Society, Miranda Joseph explores modes of accounting as they are used to create, sustain, or transform social relations. Envisioning accounting broadly to include...

The general assumption that social policy should be utilitarian--that society should be organized to yield the greatest level of welfare--leads inexorably to increased government interventions. Historically, however, the science of economics has advocated limits to these interventions for utilitarian reasons and because of the assumption that people know what is best for themselves. But more recently, behavioral economics has focused on biases and inconsistencies in individual behavior. Ba...

How can individuals best be encouraged to take more responsibility for their well-being and their environment or to behave more ethically in their business transactions? Across the world, governments are showing a growing interest in using behavioural economic research to inform the design of nudges which, some suggest, might encourage citizens to adopt beneficial patterns of behaviour. In this fascinating collection, leading academic economists, psychologists and philosophers reflect on h...