News and views from the Blavatnik School of Government community 
With just over eight months to go, we now have a new COP26 president in place and preparations for the biggest international summit the UK has ever hosted are in full swing. Alok Sharma has no easy task. The eyes of the world will be on Glasgow this November for […]
The bushfires in Australia are unprecedented and devastating. Yet one of the most inspiring things in the wake of the destruction is the outpouring of support from Australians and friends overseas to donate to the rural fire services, humanitarian organisations and animal support agencies. Giving to these organisations is meaningful […]
“Taxation is a complex technical issue, but that hasn’t stopped the Blavatnik School’s Master of Public Policy (MPP) students from rolling up their sleeves and getting down to the business of considering structural tax reform,” says Professor Karthik Ramanna, director of the MPP and co-author of the Future of Taxation […]
Whenever a corruption scandal hits the headlines, public attention tends to gravitate towards identifying the resources that have gone missing and the scoundrels responsible. Corruption often triggers collective moral outrage, and, at least where the problem is not systemic, it can motivate citizens to hold public officials to account. But […]
Falling trust in government is a problem. It is a particular problem among the young. The Pew Research Center recently released data showing that US adults aged between 18 and 29 reported 22% less confidence in the military than those aged 50+, 18% less in the police, 6% less in […]
In 2018, Uganda passed a daily ‘social media tax’ of 200 Ugandan shillings (around US$0.05) for several internet applications, including Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. Policymakers hoped the measure would increase revenue. It backfired: after the introduction of the tax, use of online platforms and tax revenues from these services plummeted […]
Whatever we might say is right or wrong with cities of the 21st century, they’re indisputably a defining feature of our age. As much as we’re post-modern, post-gender or post-colonial, we’re also post-rural. Our existence, for an increasing majority, is urban. Even more than that, our aspirations are urban. This […]
Any item you can think of delivered to your home in a matter of hours and at a low price; rides taking you from one side of the city to the other quickly and conveniently; staying connected to your friends and family, seeing their every update with the swipe of […]