Adam Smith Institute

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The Adam Smith Institute is a think tank based in the United Kingdom, named after the father of modern economics, Adam Smith. Although non-partisan, it espouses free market and classical liberal views, in particular by creating radical policy options in the light of public choice theory, which politicians can then develop. Its president, Madsen Pirie, has said "We propose things which people regard as being on the edge of lunacy. The next thing you know, they're on the edge of policy."[1]

The Institute was "a pioneer of privatisation"[2] in the UK and elsewhere. Early Institute papers proposed the outsourcing of local government services (1980), the fundamentals of the poll tax (1981-1985) and the deregulation of road transport and privatisation of the National Bus Company (1980), all of which were put into practice in the UK. It also developed the education reforms implemented by the Education Reform Act 1988, which allowed state schools to take over their own budgets, and the plans for an internal market in the National Health Service. Other influences include the UK's cutting of income tax to 40% in the late 1980s, and its liberalisation of alcohol licensing laws.

In the early 1990s, some Institute staff founded a consulting arm, Adam Smith International Ltd. Although the two are frequently confused, this is now an entirely independent company which no longer has any ties to the Institute.

1 History
2 Highlights from the Adam Smith Institute website
3 Books
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] History

Madsen Pirie, Eamonn Butler and Stuart Butler were students together at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. In 1973, they left Scotland to work with Edwin Feulner, who became co-founder of the free-market think tank the Heritage Foundation, in 1973.

After their apprenticeship in the United States, Eamonn Butler and Madsen Pirie returned to Scotland in 1977 to found their own think tank, the Adam Smith Institute, set up with the help of Antony Fisher of the Institute of Economic Affairs.

In 2005, the Adam Smith Institute's Research Director Alex Singleton founded the Globalisation Institute, concentrating on international development.

Most recently, the Institute has released a series of Roadmap to Reform papers, calling for shifts in public policy in Health, Degregulation and Europe. In 2006, the Institute released a paper calling for a rethink of Britain's countryside policy.

[edit] Highlights from the Adam Smith Institute website

This article uses content from the SourceWatch article on Adam Smith Institute under the terms of the GFDL.

Eamonn Butler, Hayek: his contribution to the political and economic thought of our time A free publication which covers the themes of Friedrich Hayek many works, one of the Adam Smith Institute's Heroes[3]

[edit] Books

Joseph McCauley, Dynamics of Markets, Econophysics and Finance, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, 2004) - (Preface: Book Emphasizes ... that there is yet no evidence from the analysis of real, unmassaged market data to support the notion of Adam Smiths stabilizing Invisible Hand. There is no empirical evidence for stable equilibrium, for a stabilizing hand to provide self-regulation of unregulated markets.) - This is in contrast to the position taken by the Adam Smith Institute.