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Chef and television personality Jamie Oliver was a major proponent of a sugar tax in the UK. You would think, then, that a sugar tax would be a real triumph for the chef turned lobbyist. Read more

As the UK is heading for its referendum on EU membership, one might assume Prime Minister David Cameron’s entire focus would be on this once-in-a-generation vote. What could be more important than finally settling Britain’s uneasy relationship with Europe? Read more

Too many New Zealanders are walking around with a shameful addiction. Your family members, colleagues or even spouse may be secretly struggling. Read more

I’m really glad I’m a millennial. If I wasn’t, I’d have a pretty hard time understanding exactly what they’re all about. Read more

When Cal Tech economist D. Roderick Kiewiet looked hard at the stack of American regulations affecting health and safety, he found a mess. Read more

We this week released Elisabeth Prasad's report running some of the numbers on whether compensating live kidney donors makes sense. She finds that the typical kidney transplant saves the Ministry of Health on net about $125,000 over the longer term: dialysis is expensive. Read more

The most important norm in economics was set by economist Vilfredo Pareto about a century ago. Put simply, the Pareto Criterion says that anything making at least one person better off, while making nobody else worse off, is desirable. Read more

For my sins in generally supporting consumer choice in food consumption, and in interests of fostering healthy debate, the Agencies for Nutrition Action invited me to argue with the Morgan Foundation’s Geoff Simmons on the merits of fat taxes and food regulation at his annual conference in Auckland a few weeks ago. The nutritionists put on an excellent conference. Read more

Humans often make stupid decisions - contrary to what we’d prefer to believe. Most psychologists would argue we’re not actually all that rational. Read more