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Would firing staff 'at will' boost the economy?

Is there any evidence to support the Beecroft Review's recommended changes to employment law? Plus hard-working Greeks, infidelity, and Ben Goldacre on publication bias.

In this week's programme:

Fire "at will"?
The Beecroft Report has been stirring up controversy all week. But is there any evidence that the economy would be boosted if employers could fire their staff "at will", as Adrian Beecroft recommends? Professor John Van Reenan - director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics - can't find much.

Hard-working Greeks
One version of the Euro crisis story has it that hard-working Germans are bailing out lazy Greeks. But in fact Greek workers put in far longer hours than their German counterparts.

The maths of infidelity
It's a very commonly-held belief that men are less faithful than women. But it takes two to tango. So can this be mathematically possible?

Publication bias
If we on More or Less were only to report statistical errors, and never statistical triumphs, you could be forgiven for concluding that the world is full of numerical lies. That's "publication bias" - and it's a big problem in science, as Ben Goldacre explains.

Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Richard Knight.

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25 minutes

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Broadcasts

  • Fri 25 May 2012 16:30
  • Sun 27 May 2012 20:00

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