On Saturday 19 October 2019, the UK Parliament faces a historic choice over whether or not to vote through the new deal agreed by Boris Johnson and the European Union. Members should demand that the Johnson deal be put to the people against the alternative of a much better deal – remaining in the EU.
This People’s Vote is demanded […]
The effect of trade liberalisation on economic activity remains one of the most important questions in economics. While prominent theories of international trade show that free trade improves the allocation of resources and welfare within countries (the so called “reallocation channel”), trade scepticism is at a historical high in many policy circles around the world.
It is well understood that […]
The crisis has resulted in a substantial rise in unemployment in Europe and a notable divergence in unemployment rates and labour market outcomes post-crisis. Particularly, the events that unfolded since the financial crisis and the ensuing sovereign debt — as well as political and institutional — crisis had a tremendous impact on labour markets across Europe. Following a period […]
The role of innovation in explaining economic performance has been a focus of economic research for decades, and many questions remain unanswered. One of the main challenges is how we measure innovation. Only by improving the information we have at the firm level can we say something about the links between productivity, firm performance and the implementation of new ideas. In […]
Climate risk disclosure has advanced rapidly over the last four years, since governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney highlighted the risks of climate change to the finance and insurance industries in his Tragedy of the Horizon speech. The focus on climate risk disclosure has driven demand for physical climate risk analytics in a range of sectors, spurred on largely […]
Looking at the big picture it is not easy to pick your way through the media representations of the debate around automation, robots and the future of work. Sources and multiple studies are, in fact, very variable in quality, evidence and rigour. Nevertheless, media narratives seem to polarise around two storylines — hype or fear. “Hype” tells us that […]
In the initial public offering (IPO) market, sophisticated issuers with considerable sums at stake acquire underwriting services from a large number of capable and highly competitive investment banks. Neoclassical economics implies that such a market will (well, really, must) reach an efficient equilibrium. Yet, in practice, the IPO market has a number of highly unusual features that has led […]
In the classroom I simply refer to him as “Weitzman”, in the same way people simply refer to Keynes, Arrow, Solow, or Hicks. Such widely understood abbreviations reflect their high standing and unique contributions. Students recognised the importance of Weitzman’s contributions to economic theory too. After a year-long lecture series, one of my students proposed a t-shirt with “What […]
The stock market moves a lot on a day-to-day basis. Today the S&P 500 index may be up 1 per cent, and tomorrow it may be down 1 per cent. And although news commentators may be forced to relate it to some news about the economy, it is rare to come across news that may add or destroy the […]
We are careening towards the most extreme form of Brexit imaginable – flouncing out of the European Union (EU) after 46 years, without any transition plan. Operation Yellowhammer, a leaked secret report from the government’s own officials predicted that the outcome of this “No Deal Brexit” would be shortages of medicines and fresh foods, civil unrest and transport chaos. […]
Air pollution is bad for us. We all know that polluted air is detrimental to our health and recent research shows that it can also affect our performance in education, productivity at work and even our safety. This has important implications for our cities. Why? Because air pollution is primarily an urban problem. It is in large cities and their urban cores where we typically experience the worst air quality. As a result, the economist’s textbook description of urbanisation lists air pollution as one of […]
The opening of big-box stores – i.e., large chain supermarket stores – has been a political concern in many countries over the last 20 years. Their critics claim they create enormous negative externalities in pre-existing market and city structures. They also say that this type of stores exacerbates pollution levels and contributes to the hollowing out of city centres, […]
International trade is widely viewed as creating winners and losers in an economy. Influential work has documented that US labour markets were heavily disrupted by the surge of imports following China’s joining the World Trade Organisation in 2001, a historic change in trade widely referred to as the “China shock”. Much less is known, though, about the extent to […]
The rise of the giant tech platforms has raised many questions about their dominance — not only their market power, but also their political influence and power to adjust individual human behaviours. A recent LSE Business Breakfast (held under Chatham House rules — opinions may be reported but not attributed) discussed some of the policies that often make up […]
Some years ago, we started to wonder when (or when not), how and why (or why not) employees are expressing their religious identity at work.
This interest was driven by some highly visible cases were employees’ religious beliefs were in conflict with work. For example, two Catholic midwives sought to avoid supervising abortion procedures, a case that reached the UK […]
What happens to citizens’ political preferences when they are confronted with economic hardship? This longstanding question has recently attracted renewed attention in the wake of the Great Recession. Nonetheless, many matters remain unresolved. For example, which types of preferences are affected? Are we mainly talking about views on concrete policy issues and politicians’ approval ratings, or are more deep-seated […]
Wartime rhetoric, especially harking back to World War II, pervades public discourse in many fields. In the UK, this is currently a device associated particularly with the Brexit ‘debate’. But here and around the world such emotive framing now extends to the climate emergency. Esteemed economist Joseph Stiglitz has referred to the climate crisis as humanity’s Third World War, […]
Across the world, many people aren’t saving enough money to be able to retire from work, or to be prepared for emergencies. Some of these people have very low incomes, but others earn a lot, they just spend most of it. Personally, I’ve been in both situations. In the years before I went to graduate school, I worked in […]
Gender identity norms such as the male bread-winner model are possible drivers of persistent gender inequalities in the labour market. However, the extent to which they restrict the behaviour of couples is debated. While the simple observation of men’s and women’s specialisation in market and domestic work may be revealing of gender identity norms, the observed time allocation of […]
In the early 20th century a ship travelling from San Francisco to New York or on to Europe first had to travel over 13,000 miles around the entirety of South America. That all changed in August of 1914 with the opening of the Panama Canal, bridging the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. And while the new canal cut the distance […]
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