Philippe Legrain

A hard Brexit would be a disaster for Britain’s economy, especially in a more protectionist Trump world – and we are already all poorer due to the pound’s plunge. My column for Prospect

My piece for Prospect

Prospect, April 2010. A new land tax is the only efficient and fair way to bring Britain’s finances back into line

Prospect, April 2009. Ha-Joon Chang’s suggestion that the world needs a dose of protectionism is utterly misguided

Prospect, October 2006. Apple’s threat to sue companies that use the word “Pod” in product names is reminiscent of the bully-boy tactics that made Microsoft so unpopular in the 1990s

Prospect, September 2006. Disappointment at Doha, but it wasn’t all America’s fault. Is BP having too much bad luck? And Wolfowitz demands that the World Bank stops corruption

Prospect, August 2006. Higher energy prices are likely to mean rising inflation and slower growth. Plus the misguided populism of EU commissioners

Prospect, August 2006. Contrary to Robert Wade’s arguments, countries that open up their economies tend to prosper. We need to help more of them reap globalisation’s benefits

Prospect, July 2006. Shareholder capitalism finally makes it into law. And the NGO’s flawed accountability charter shows they don’t practice what they preach

Prospect, June 2006. David Cameron has joined in the Tesco-bashing, but the OFT should leave it alone. And the IMF is proving better at spin than at giving poorer countries votes

Prospect, May 2006. The outlook for the Doha round may not be as bad as it looks; why a dreary North sea gas pipeline is at the centre of things; and Gordon Brown’s productivity problem

Many French people rejected the constitution because they regard Brussels as the handmaiden of "ultra-liberal" Anglo-Saxon capitalism, intent on deregulating markets and opening up the French economy to competition. Just look, they say, at the EU’s proposed services directive, which would tear down barriers to trade in services, or at the eastward enlargement of the […]

Last month, Michael Lind argued that free-trade globalism locks in rich-world advantage and kicks away the ladder. He is wrong.

The IMF and the World Bank are lending institutions; they cannot be run by their borrowers. But they can listen more to poor countries.

Oxfam has brilliantly exposed the EU as the worst of trade hypocrites; but it’s a pity it still misreads the WTO.

Free trade is good for poor countries despite what protesters and protectionists claim. But there is less of it than most people think. Most trade is regional, not global, and next month’s WTO meeting in Doha is unlikely to change that.

An unholy alliance of greens, development lobbyists and old-fashioned protectionists is blasting the World Trade Organisation, often for contradictory reasons. But free trade is good for the rich, and better still for the poor – even when it is complicated by “cultural” issues such as food safety.