I’m at the Royal Economic Society annual meetings today, hunting for ideas. I wrote a report of the 2008 Meeting of the Royal Economic Society [pdf] last year and have just discovered it online.

I am speaking at the Royal Institution on Monday 27 April, 7-8.30pm. Details avaiable here.

Even those addicted to alcohol drink less when costs rise, says economist Tim Harford. Because we all respond to prices - even to the point of the day we die or give birth.
If Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson has his way, one day we will have to pay at least 50p a unit to buy booze. That’s £1.50 for a large can of strong lager. Most off-licence and supermarket booze costs less than that, so it would certainly change the cost of a drink.
But would it make any difference to hardened drinkers? Many people think not. After all, a tenner would still pay for 20 units - nearly a week’s safe drinking, or some people’s idea of a good night out.
So many people think this would punish ordinary drinkers without deterring the winos, brawlers and wife-beaters. The government won’t touch it. Conservative health spokesman Andrew Lansley says it’s an idea more to do with economics, than medicine.
The odd thing is most economists will think Sir Liam is on to something. Raise the price of drink, we figure, and people will drink less. That’s because people respond to prices in the most unlikely situations.
Margaret Mitchell commented in Gone with the Wind: “Death, taxes and childbirth! There’s never a convenient time for any of them.”
She was wrong: it turns out that death and childbirth can be, and are, rescheduled thanks to tax incentives…

Continued at BBC News Magazine.

For readers in London:

Find reason in a crazy world: join Tim Harford a.k.a ‘The Undercover Economist’ discusses his newest book…
Tim Harford
The Logic of Life
WATERSTONE’S GOWER STREET
Thursday, 19 March 2009, 6:00PM
Tickets £3/£2 - redeemable against the promoted book on the night. Avalaible from the store.

In his bestselling new book, Undercover Economist,Tim Harford - author/prolific columnist and presenter of Radio 4’s ‘More or Less’ explains how there can be logic behind even the most irrational of behaviour. He will answer some of life’s mysteries including, Why is your boss overpaid? Why do people smoke? For more info or tickets call the store or events@gowerst.watertsones.co.uk.
Further details: 020 7636 1577

I wrote this for the Today program; scroll down and you can hear an interview with me on the subject from this morning’s show.

“I’m backing Britain…”, crooned Bruce Forsyth in 1968. “Yes I’m backing Britain/We’re all backing Britain.”
Despite Brucie’s support, the “I’m Backing Britain” campaign did not last long. The campaign’s T-shirts were even produced in Portugal. Typical, perhaps, of the difficulty of building up a head of steam in support of the national economy.
Economic patriotism was never really Britain’s thing, but it seems to be enjoying a comeback.
Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, told an audience of farmers last October that he wanted a return to the “Buy British” mindset, with government support.
Last week, the environment secretary Hilary Benn also called for consumers to buy British food, also at a farming conference.
No doubt it was crowd-pleasing stuff, but it is puzzling.
After all, every time we deliberately Buy British we are also deliberately “Not Buying From Foreigners”.
In a world where racism is rightly viewed with disgust and contempt, it is a strange thing that discrimination against foreigners is regarded as acceptable, even laudable.
It is also not very smart, because there are so many more foreigners than us.
The economist Gary Becker has tried to calculate the economic costs of discrimination. What he found was common sense. When a large group and a small group discriminate against each other, it is the small group that suffers. The rest of the world could happily do without British products, but Britain cannot happily do without the rest of the world.
It is true that if a “Buy British” campaign persuaded many of us to seek out British products and turn away from imports, that would be a shot in the arm for the workers and companies who produced those products.
But here is the bad news. If foreigners find they cannot sell us their products, foreigners would also find that they had no sterling to buy exports.
For every local product that beat off foreign competition, there would be a British exporter struggling to find customers. We cannot have a world where we sell lots of products to foreigners, but we never buy anything from them.

Granted… such a world would, at least, cut down on food miles and you might think that would be good for the planet.
But not necessarily. Buying foreign products may add to food miles but it can also cut down on the need for heated greenhouses or intensive farming. In any case, international freight is very efficiently done. (No, those cut flowers from Kenya do not fly first class.)
When Hilary Benn had a different job - development secretary - he agreed with me, calling for people to buy Kenyan flowers for Valentine’s Day in 2007. He must have forgotten.
The biggest environmental cost of food transport comes, not from international shipping, but driving to and from the supermarket, often with just a couple of carrier bags in the back of the car.
Having looked closely at the evidence, I have concluded that what really reduces carbon emissions is making sure you walk or cycle to the shops.
Do not get me wrong. I am backing Britain. I am just not backing the British at the expense of foreigners, or national producers at the expense of British exporters.
But if I have not convinced you, please wait a moment before getting on the phone to Portugal to order your T-shirts.
There is already a hugely effective policy in place that will help support British firms and British workers: the collapse in the value of the pound, which makes it harder for foreigners to find buyers here and easier for British exporters to expand. It will have more impact than 1,000 “Backing Britain” campaigns.
Perhaps Brucie could sing us a song about it.

A reminder that I’m presenting a Radio 4 documentary tonight about Neuroeconomics; 9pm, Radio 4, or online. It’s being podcast somewhere too.

Just in case people are interested, there exists a collection of my non-Dear Economist, non-Undercover Economist articles. It includes news stories, occasional freelance pieces and features for FT Magazine.

A few yards out, something brushes against my leg - a fish? A floating bottle? - causing a reflexive, panicky yelp. Then, as we head out towards the middle of the lake, I feel myself growing in confidence. When I duck my head below the waves, at first I can see the weeds and the water. After a while, there’s nothing down there but shafts of green light disappearing into the darkness. It’s disconcerting to look for more than an instant.I flip between sidestroke and back crawl while Fran, the stronger swimmer, sticks to a confident breaststroke. The wetsuits are a miracle, taking the water’s sting away. We arc out towards the centre of the lake, venturing gradually further from the shore, while the walking party disappears from view behind a ridge.Wordsworth once praised the view from the centre of Crummock Water, but he was in a boat, which is cheating. He was right, though. With dead-flat water all around us, cormorants swooping low over the surface ahead, and the vast bulks of Mellbreak and Grasmoor above, this is the most impossibly beautiful place.

The full article is here. I don’t want to spoil the plot, but it involves me getting wet. Pictures in today’s FT Magazine.