Blog Archives - Page 6 of 11 - Centre for Enterprise Markets and Ethics

April 26, 2022 Blog

Richard Turnbull: The Ethics of P&O

The P&O debacle has become a touchstone for business ethics. Few would like to be in the shoes of Peter Hebblethwaite, the Chief Executive, who admitted in oral evidence to a joint sessions of the Transport and the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committees, that he had broken the law on consultation with trade unions...

March 10, 2022 Blog

John Kroencke: Competing Institutional Solutions to Housing Supply Restrictions

In the last few years, increasing numbers of people across the political spectrum and across the developed world have begun to recognize the effects of restrictive housing rules on high housing prices in many global cities. In these cities, the physical cost of producing an additional unit of housing is lower than the value at...

March 1, 2022 Blog

Richard Turnbull: The Public want Goods, not Politics

Terry Smith, chief executive of investment management company, Fundsmith, began his January 2022 letter to investors, ‘This is the twelfth annual letter to owners of the Fundsmith Equity Fund.’ Pretty routine stuff one might think. Except. Unilever was the second worse performing stock in the Fund. Smith did not hold back: “Unilever seems to be...

February 8, 2022 Blog

Richard Turnbull: The ‘elites’ have lost confidence in the market

60 per cent of business leaders and, indeed, 75 per cent of leaders in larger businesses, think profit is incompatible with a society in which people are happy. Incompatible. The figure for the general public is just 37 per cent. Similar percentages of business leaders think business should be taxed more and executives are paid...

December 14, 2021 Blog

Brian Griffiths: A Celebration of Advent

The meaning of Advent I must first make a confession. I love carol services. I love singing carols. I love the Christmas tree. I love Christmas decorations. I love the festivities of Christmas. They remind me of when I was very young singing carols from house to house in Fforestfach which was then a...

December 7, 2021 Blog

John Kroencke: Long a political target, big business polls better than you might think

Despite criticising the actions of big business being a favourite pastime of many a business minister, John Kroencke writes that wider opinion of big business is actually more favourable than we might expect. Like many I rely on Amazon. In fact, there is rarely a week where a package doesn’t arrive on my doorstep. While...

November 27, 2021 Blog

Richard Turnbull: When it comes to business, the clergy and the flock see things very differently

Committed churchgoers – defined as those who attend weekly – have a considerably more positive view of business and the market economy than those who lead them and teach them. This is the result of polling conducted for the Centre for Enterprise, Markets and Ethics. Savanta ComRes polled six audiences between 10th May 2021 and...

October 24, 2021 Blog

Lord Griffiths: Can the Bank of England Stop the Drift of Inflation into Stagflation?

UK inflation is suddenly back with a vengeance. In an interview with the Financial Times, Huw Pill, the chief economist at the Bank of England (and my former colleague at Goldman Sachs) warns that the official rate of inflation may rise above five per cent early next year. This means that the retail price index could rise...

October 1, 2021 Blog

John Kroencke: Environmentalism, Degrowth, and the Moral Case for Economic Growth

Those following the news in the U.S. and U.K. have strained to find much of intellectual interest in contemporary policy debates. Sure, there are ever-widening cultural battles and an array of topics on which one can admire the slogan-jousting of a few hired hands, but there is a seemingly small market for reasoned discussion about...

September 15, 2021 Blog

Andrei Rogobete: What Makes Society Ethical?

Some would say that with the National Insurance hike of 1.25%, Boris Johnson seems to have all but erased the (already thin-wearing) conservative ideology found within the Conservative party. However, there are some broader debates we should be having that do not cross party lines. Let’s give Boris the benefit of doubt and assume that...