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The contentious debate over foreign ownership has been heartily reignited, subsequent to Labour MP Stuart Nash questioning whether foreign investors are really adding value to the country. He has described the selling off of productive land to foreign investors who repatriate the profits overseas as a “dead end street” and is demanding greater transparency in the approval process of foreign investment applications. Read more

Ending the Swiss franc’s peg to the euro surprised market participants, analysts and commentators alike, including this writer. Unlike the introduction of the euro peg in 2011, which was flagged beforehand, the end of the measure was prepared in secret. Read more

People have a bad habit of wanting to tell stories about random low-probability events. Whether it's a few dog attacks that happened in the same couple of weeks, or a blip in youth drinking rates, people want to know why. Read more

Usually, we call things stable when they do not change and unstable if they do. Apparently this is not the case in monetary policy. Read more

We should not pay through the roof for small safety benefits, argues Bryce Wilkinson How would you react to being told that government regulations have added 50 percent to the cost of replacing a tin roof on a house? I ask because a long-standing professional builder told me in a chance encounter shortly before Christmas that scaffolding requirements under the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 mean that a small re-roofing job that would have otherwise cost $4,000 may now cost $6,000. Read more

In my last column of 2014, I wrote that European leaders usually pick the least appealing policy option and still manage to make it worse (A Greek olive branch for Steve Keen, 18 December). Maybe that was a premature assessment. Read more