Almost every major central bank now does "inflation targeting". This was invented in New Zealand in the 1980s – but not by economists. Instead, a one govt minister, Roger Douglas, made it happen – and helped the world to tame inflation in the process. worksinprogress.co/issue/how-one-…

Lead poisoning is one of the worst public health problems in the world. We've eliminated it in most countries, but in many places lead persists, causing brain damage and heart disease. The good news? Eliminating lead poisoning might be *shockingly easy*. worksinprogress.co/issue/the-end-…

New article from me in Works in Progress on the history of inflation targeting. Works in Progress is my favourite magazine so it was a huge pleasure to write for them

Nice, though I don’t believe 9+ months from now is really the soonest we could start this.

Good call by the PM - and hugely admirable work by Charlie Peters with the right result here. Let justice be done.

Awesome! The UK has more potential energy than anywhere else on earth right now, IMO, in terms of the gap between what it is and what it could be in a short space of time.

Lead poisoning causes 5.5 million premature deaths a year through heart disease alone - more than die from unsafe water and poor sanitation, and almost as many as die from air pollution. But eliminating lead poisoning might be simpler than you think. worksinprogress.co/issue/the-end-…

This was an incredibly interesting story about how amazing it is we now have a treatment for HIV, and the complexities of drug development. It is basically 5 episodes of an hour released at once. Haven't listened to anything where I learned so much in 5 hours in a while!

Japan is famed for its flourishing urban life, with peerless infrastructure and vibrant urban density. The bewildering image below is Tokyo's rail map, the world's most extensive network, and one of the true wonders of the world. But it was not always so. Japan entered the

Giving people who make archaeological discoveries some ownership over what they find – so they have to be compensated if a museum seizes them – is a good way to get more archaeological discoveries. Britain does this well, the rest of the world less so. reason.com/2025/06/06/the…

This is an excellent conversation about the decline of US global power and the return of a Great Power system. Required listening for anyone in Europe who doubts that economic growth & rearmament are our continent’s two overriding priorities right now.

Great lineup - looks like a fab event.

🚨 We’re launching the final version of our Far-UVC Blueprint! What started as a 3–6 month project turned into a two-year deep dive into one of the most promising tools for airborne infection control.

Why do Spanish cities look and feel so good? The paving is clean. The streets are buzzing. The metros are world-class. Part of the reason is land readjustment. 🧵

Susan Li is CFO of Meta and has never(!!) done a podcast. We talked about AI capex, whether your baseball hat should say FCF or EBITDA, how Meta allocates GPUs, and working with Mark Zuckerberg.

🚨🚨 Lenacapavir FDA approved today, twice-yearly shot preventing HIV 🚨🚨 It's now possible to drive down transmission everywhere, and win against the AIDS epidemic, with other long-lasting drugs in trials too Here's the story of how scientists got here, 44 years of hard work:

“Forced investment” - BritISAs and forcing pensions to invest in UK assets - does not improve underlying fundamentals, and so drives down returns and concentrates risk. Another demand subsidy for markets that need supply-side reform. britishprogress.org/reports/isa-pe…

It is quite funny that the UK is now lumbered with a Big Tech regulator that was explicitly set up on the basis that Google and Facebook could not be competed with.