Even Zack Polanski’s favourite economist admits wealth taxes don’t work Opinion Gabriel Zucman has told Zack Polanski’s podcast that wealth taxes don’t work – so why are they both so keen to bring them back? Asks Kristian Niemietz “The historical experience with wealth taxation, by and large, is a failure. Pretty big failure.” Who said that? Was it an economist from a Tufton Street think tank? [...]
Burnham’s ‘neoliberalism’ critique is just Thatcher karaoke Opinion The British economy today is a million miles away from “neoliberalism”, even if we lack a catchy name to describe what has replaced it, says Kristian Niemietz For some countries, we have well-developed national stereotypes and associations. Everyone has an idea in their mind of what counts as “typically French”, “typically Italian” or “typically German”. [...]
Gary Stevenson is predictably wrong about wealth taxes Opinion Wealth taxes, as promoted by the likes of Gary Stevenson and Zack Polanski, are a terrible idea. Let’s make Britain rich instead, says Kristian Niemietz Wealth taxes are currently all the rage. Over the past few years, a massive hype has built up around the idea: 75 per cent of the public say they support [...]
Space is the new frontier in economics April 14, 2026 Property rights underpin capitalism here on Earth, they must do the same in space – a new book by City AM columnist Rainer Zitelmann argues A little over ten years ago, when smartphones were still sufficiently new to mention, I attended a talk by an economist who argued that it was a mistake to see [...]
Scrap inheritance tax! March 16, 2026 Inheritance tax is burdensome, distortionary and barely raises any revenue. Get rid of it now says Kristian Niemietz If you work in Westminster, you treat protest marches as part of the background noise. I have been working in SW1 since the late-stage Gordon Brown era, and I have certainly seen my fair share of those [...]
What’s so bad about a wealth tax? July 7, 2025 That "millionaires don't need all that money" misses the point. Wealth taxes hurt us all, writes Callum Price.
Back to the 80s to fix the housing crisis January 10, 2025 Experts have been warning about the housing crisis for decades – and the solutions have been staring us in the face for just as long, says Kristian Niemietz “[T]he planning system […] has significantly increased land and housing prices […] and distorted the economic structure, all of which have led to the British standard of [...]
How Poland and Vietnam escaped poverty October 17, 2024 In a new book, Rainer Zitelmann examines how Poland and Vietnam escaped the ravages of the Cold War to become some of the world’s fastest growing economies – and argues that poverty isn’t inevitable, it’s a policy choice says Kristian Niemietz Case studies in recent economic history typically deal with unambiguous success stories, or unambiguous [...]
The great greying of the British right September 13, 2024 Why are none of the Conservative leadership candidates talking about the economy? It’s down to a self-fulfilling cycle of pandering to pensioners and alienating younger workers, says Kristian Niemietz The Tory Party’s leadership campaign has so far heavily focused on culture war issues. I don’t mean this in a pejorative way. We are in a [...]
Notes from a future where Britain has solved the housing crisis April 16, 2024 In ten years’ time, high house prices and low supply could be a thing of the past. Kristian Niemietz offers a despatch from that brave new world… The year is 2035 and according to provisional figures released today by the Office for National Statistics it is the tenth year in a row during which house [...]
