The democratic world is stuck in a self-destructive, self-reinforcing loop: unforced policy errors lead to desperate gambles both by politicians and voters, lea ...

When James Dallas Egbert III was reported missing from his college dorm in 1979, one of America’s most flamboyant private detectives was summoned to solve the case. “Dallas” faced the same problems as ...

Off the coast of an Italian island, an enormous cruise ship - seventeen floors high, three soccer pitches long - is tilting noticeably to one side. The local mayor is horrified: there are thousands of ...

Thanks for your questions – fielded this time with the able assistance of Jacob Goldstein, the author of Money: The True Story of a Made Up Thing. “Thanks to Tim Harford’s characteristic wit and ...

The Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, for work that “makes you laugh, then makes you think”, came and went this year, with a clutch of worthy winners. I must report, more in sorrow than in anger, that no Ig ...

There are many ways to give a terrible speech. The chief executive who pulls out a sheaf of densely written text and robotically reads it aloud. The management consultant whose every word competes ...

Off the coast of an Italian island, an enormous cruise ship – seventeen floors high, three soccer pitches long – is tilting noticeably to one side. The local mayor is horrified: there are thousands of ...

The simplest and most reliable way to see everything I create is here on this blog, via RSS or email. (I don’t share your email or use it for any other purpose.) Try it! FT Subscribers If you have an ...

The Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, for work that “makes you laugh, then makes you think”, came and went this year, with a clutch of worthy winners. I must report, more in sorrow than in anger, that no Ig ...

Editor’s note: This story is presented in a choose-your-own-path style. If you happen to have a D20 on hand, feel free to roll for your choices. In 1984, when I was 11 years old, a friend told me ...

In 1979, Archie Cochrane published an essay chastising (not for the first time) his fellow doctors. “It is surely a great criticism of our profession,” he wrote, “that we have not organised a critical ...