The Economist’s early views on free trade were strongly influenced by the classical economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo, as Ruth Dudley Edwards, a historian, has pointed out.

The Economist: Is free trade good for economic growth? John Van Reenen: As I see it, there are four big benefits. The first one can be traced all the way back to David Ricardo in the early 1800s.

A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist.This week, are free markets history? Also, why Africans are losing faith in democracy (10:25) and we ...

How free-market economics reshaped legal systems the world over Friedrich Hayek’s followers promised growth. They may have overpromised ...

Given the now-general disdain for free markets, it is easy to forget the economic miracles they conjure. In his book, “The Company of Strangers”, Paul Seabright, an economist, uses a purchase ...

These arguments in favour of free trade are lain out by Adam Smith, a Scottish economist, in “The Wealth of Nations”, his magnum opus published in 1776.

The economics of free are different. Unlike conventional merchants, companies like Facebook and Google have their users themselves produce value.

Any restraints on free enterprise push society towards socialism, he says. Even neoclassical economics, the framework that guides most economic policymaking, “ends up favouring socialism”.

KWAME NKRUMAH, Ghana’s first president, led his country to independence in 1957, an achievement that helped inspire many African states to break ties with their colonial powers. Six years later ...

YouTube Premium, which charges $13.99 a month to go ad-free, had 80m paying subscribers last year (the latest figure available), behind only Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime among Western platforms.

Under the new sanctions-free environment that could rise by 50% by the end of the year. Analysts, however, stress that reintroducing Venezuelan oil to the world market will not have a serious ...