Does the hidden hand need to hold a stake in society?

As the father of a four year old daughter, I have been to the cinema to see the the Disney film, Tinkerbell and the Pirate Fairy .  When I t...

Finance and Mathematics: where is the ethical malaise?

This is a draft of an article that has been accepted by  The Mathematical Intelligencer  and offers an argument very similar to Romer's ...

Mathiness: not just a problem of macro-economics

I was aware of the "mathiness" discussion initiated by the macro-economist Paul Romer, but have only recently read the articles b...

A moral case for bank money

Finance is a skeleton that supports the development of a healthy society, not a utility that plumbs the economy together. The justification ...

Maths and morals, economics and greed

This piece has been posted on the Res Publica think tank  Disraeli Room blog . I recently asked a prominent mathematician who once ran a h...

Hyperbolic (or Simple) Discounting

I was critical of Doyne Farmer in my previous post, and in response I got a message from someone I respect But I like Farmer's work... s...