Expert Comment

With the Royal Horticultural Society revealing its top ten list of garden pests and diseases this week, Dr Joana Vicente from the University of Warwick School of Life Sciences has explained a little more about what makes these gardeners' troubles so problematic.

" A single auditor working on self-assessment returns can bring in enough revenue to pay for their own salary, and that of four nurses too." The Chancellor has announced plans to employ 1300 additional auditors, expected to bring in an average of £770m a year over the next five years by improving compliance with the tax rules. Dr Arun Advani of Warwick Economics and CAGE explains the "tax gap" and why closing it is important.

"It is … important to realize that fear and anxiety are linked to our cognitive biases and that others might want to manipulate these emotional triggers in us." Dr Georg Löfflmann of the Department of Politics and International Studies comments on the factors influencing people to strip the supermarket shelves of essential goods.

"Market penalty depends a great deal on the type of breach, the sensitivity of the information, the number of records lost, the extent to which the firm ‘holds itself out’ as a safe guardian of data and the delay between breach and disclosure." Dr Jonathan Cave comments on the consequences that can flow from large data breaches such as the recent Virgin Media incident.

"To the extent that the market reflects fundamentals, a fall in values caused by expected future supply disruptions is to be expected and is not necessarily a bad thing. But there is a real danger that Coronavirus will spread not only though biological contagion, but through financial contagion." Professor Roger Farmer explores the potential economic impact of COVID-19.