Influence
In January 2009 Foreign Policy and the University of Pennsylvania named the Adam Smith Institute among the top 10 think-tanks in the world outside of the US. The Institute is highly influential in UK public policy, and was "a pioneer of privatisation" 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 and privatisation of transportation (1980). The privatisation of British Rail in 1997 was also based on a plan suggested by the Institute. Other influences include the UK's cutting of the highest rate of income tax from 83% to 40% in the late 1980s, and its liberalisation of alcohol licensing laws.
The Institute has released a series of Roadmap to Reform papers, calling for shifts in public policy in Health, Deregulation and Europe. In 2006, the Institute released a paper calling for a rethink of Britain's countryside policy.
Read more about this topic: Adam Smith Institute
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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“The question of place and climate is most closely related to the question of nutrition. Nobody is free to live everywhere; and whoever has to solve great problems that challenge all his strength actually has a very restricted choice in this matter. The influence of climate on our metabolism, its retardation, its acceleration, goes so far that a mistaken choice of place and climate can not only estrange a man from his task but can actually keep it from him: he never gets to see it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)