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The findings in the literature on the influence of government ideology on economic freedom are mixed. How to aggregate or disaggregate measures of limited government is an open question and causality remains a problem in most studies. This article employs data on government spending and regulation using a new disaggregation scheme developed by Ryan Murphy, and employs a causal strategy relying on comparing general results with results after close elections. The empirical findings indicate that government investment and ownership are affected by government ideology while a statistically significant association with government spending probably reflects the reverse causal direction.

The knowledge problem and volatility in electricity markets have long been central to policy debates in energy markets. This study examines the successes and limitations of machine learning in addressing these issues, contributing to the existing literature. Machine learning has shown promise in tackling specific technical aspects of power markets, but its shortcomings in forecasting customer behaviour and managing decentralised, renewable-driven systems highlight the need for further refinement. While machine learning offers potential in reducing certain aspects of market volatility, it is not a comprehensive solution to the broader challenges faced by the electricity market.

Despite the significant changes that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has made to the US healthcare system since 2010, little statistical analysis of its impact on the deadliest chronic diseases has been made. County-level data from the United States is used in conjunction with difference-in-difference models to isolate the effect of the Affordable Care Act on preventable deaths due to heart disease. Our national causal inference analysis found a significant decrease of preventable heart disease mortality due to the Medicaid expansions.

Anthony Seldon (with Jonathan Meakin), Truss at 10: How Not to Be Prime Minister. Atlantic Books. 2024. 366 + xvi pp. £22.00 (hbk). ISBN: 978-1805462132. £12.99 (pbk). ISBN: 978-1805462163. £11.99 (ebk). ISBN: 978-1805462156

Liz Truss, Ten Years to Save the West: Lessons from the Only Conservative in the Room. Biteback Publishing. 320 pp. £20.00 (hbk). ISBN: 978-1785908576. £10.99 (pbk). ISBN: 978-1785909238. £14.99 (ebk). ISBN: 978-1785908637

On 6 September 2022, Liz Truss replaced Boris Johnson to become Queen Elizabeth II's 15th and last prime minister of the United Kingdom. Two days later, the queen was dead. Following a short period of official mourning, Truss and her Chancellor of the Exchequer¹ Kwasi Kwarteng launched a ‘mini-budget’ which was intended to cut taxes dramatically without any immediate matching spending cuts. Coming on top of an earlier (and potentially extremely expensive) commitment to subsidising energy prices, this sparked a serious financial crisis. This led to Truss dismissing Kwarteng and installing a new chancellor, who then scrapped almost the entire proposed fiscal package. This U-turn, together with bond-buying by the Bank of England to stave off a potential collapse of pension funds, stabilised the markets. However, she had been compromised by this reversal of her signature policy, became subject to public ridicule, and quickly lost the support of the parliamentary Conservative Party. She had little option but to resign as Conservative leader and prime minister on 20 October after just 44 days in 10 Downing Street. Five days later she was replaced as prime minister by Rishi Sunak. This was the shortest period of office of any British prime minister.

On 11 October, The Economist (2024) had published a leader column which compared Truss's expected shelf-life to that of an iceberg lettuce. This image was seized upon by the tabloid Daily Star, which began to livestream a wilting supermarket lettuce, soon attracting a huge number of viewers and becoming a meme which persisted well after her resignation. In August 2024, for example, Truss walked out of a stage appearance to promote Ten Years to Save the West after some jokers unfurled a remote control banner with a picture of a lettuce and the legend ‘I crashed the economy’ (BBC News, 2024). She was reportedly unamused.

The Truss government was certainly something of a fiasco. But why? These two books offer contrasting reasons. While Sir Anthony Seldon largely blames the personal inadequacies of Britain's 56th prime minister, Truss herself sees her administration as fatally undermined by ‘the Blob’, an amorphous grouping including “the quangocracy, an unaccountable judiciary and undemocratic international institutions” (p. 286). She argues that her experience suggests tha

The economy-wide economic surplus, defined as output beyond what is needed to sustain the labouring workforce, is one of the oldest ideas in Western political economy. Marx permanently changed economic thinking by characterising it as exploitation. As confidence in government management of economic affairs grew in the twentieth century, how to spend the surplus better than free individuals would spend it themselves became a growing theme among economists and among the broader public. While the role of the surplus in economic theory today is modest, its vibrancy in the public conversation remains.