You’re not imagining it. There is something shallow about modern life — a sense that traditional virtues, from craftsmanship to professionalism to loyalty, have somehow been hollowed out. Don’t ...

Can we “nudge” our way to a higher rate of economic growth? In a recent speech, David Halpern argued that we should at least try. Halpern was the founder of the Behavioural Insight Team (BIT) that ...

George Price is on a mission to prove that human kindness is real. He’s seen the latest research suggesting any altruism is ultimately selfish and finds it deeply depressing. George decides ...

To most thoughtful people, unemployment benefit embodies a painful trade-off. It’s the mark of a civilised society, clubbing together to provide assistance to those in need. It is also, regrettably, ...

A radical thought experiment transforms the lives of a new breed of philanthropists, as they follow the logic of altruism to extraordinary lengths. The most famous convert to the Effective ...

A good columnist is never unintentionally tedious, but this week’s effort is about obsolete telephone directories, binary counter overflow, and the alternating current waveform. The boredom is the ...

Visit the post for more.Tim Harford is peerless at making sense of a complicated world and our place within it. This is a book that all children should read” Matthew Syed Did you know that a toy ...

“Thanks to Tim Harford’s characteristic wit and magnetic storytelling, you may not realize you’re getting an advanced course in how to understand the kinds of statistics we’re all faced with every day ...