This discussion paper provides the first estimate of the net effect of smoking on UK taxpayers per annum. Up until now, estimates have used a methodology that typically includes intangible costs, including costs to smokers themselves, while ignoring tangible savings to the state and tax revenues...

This year, Dr Javed Khan, former CEO of Barnardo’s, was commissioned by the Department of Health to draw up a plan to make England ‘smoke-free’ by 2030, a pledge made during Theresa May’s administration.Khan’s prohibitionist recommendations included the painting of all cigarettes brown...

New IEA briefing explains why the Prime Minister is wrong on social mobility.Most studies show that social mobility is not in decline. Some show that it is improving.“Absolute mobility” (the tendency to move up the scale to the professional classes) increased enormously in the twentieth...

A new study into the causes behind a decline in the pub industrySummaryThe UK has lost 21,000 pubs since 1980. Half of these closures have taken place since 2006. This paper examines the likely causes of the recent surge in closures.Taxation, regulation and the recent decline in disposable...

Poorest hit hardest by consumption taxes, new research showsSummaryThe poorest twenty per cent of households in Britain spend an average of £1,286 per year on ‘sin taxes’, including betting taxes, vehicle excise duty, air passenger duty, ‘green taxes’ and duty on tobacco, alcohol and...

New IEA research calls on government to do more to end state-funded political activismSummary:The IEA has previously published two reports about state-funded political activism (Sock Puppets and Euro Puppets). This discussion paper provides further evidence of ‘government lobbying...

Research into the overall impact of plain packagingSummary●‘ Plain’ or ‘standardised’ packaging bans the use of company logos, colours and trademarks on a product’s packaging and allows governments to design the outward appearance of goods.On tobacco products in Australia, this has...

The problems with alcohol policy in the UKSummaryAlcohol policy in Britain and many other countries aims to reduce per capita alcohol consumption in the belief that this will inevitably reduce heavy and harmful drinking. The cornerstone policies of this approach are advertising bans, licensing...

This IEA publication deals head-on with a number of widely quoted myths about the market economy. In the case of the philosophical myths, such as the idea that economists believe that everybody is greedy, the author, Christopher Snowdon, carefully and entertainingly unpicks the misguided ideas...