London’s technology ecosystem is thriving. The city has over 50,000 tech firms, with over 260,000 employees. Venture capital investment rose from £384 million in 2013 to £1.8 billion in 2018. A number of companies, such as Deepmind, Transferwise and Deliveroo, have become unicorns, valued at more than £1 billion. It survived the financial crisis and is — so far […]
The transformation of China from a poor and egalitarian country to an upper middle-income country with the level of income inequality greater than in the United States has been the subject of innumerable publications. The Chinese transformation is a unique event in world economic history: never have so many people over such a relatively short period of time increased […]
I investigate a number of questions related to the drivers of per capita income levels for a large set of countries and a narrower set of OECD countries. First, I seek to figure out whether, and if so to what extent, product and labour market regulations and policies affect per capita income levels. Second, I aim to understand whether policy […]
It feels as though cyber risk has crept up on us without warning and with great intensity.
We have come a long way from the days when our palm pilots had to be hot-sync’d through a docking station and the occasional hazard was from viruses transmitted as email attachments. Over the years, we have embraced extreme connectivity combined with extreme […]
UK greenhouse gas emissions are declining and have been declining for some time. The UK has a framework of long-run targets developed by the Committee on Climate Change, an independent body of experts advising government. Despite this, things are far from well when it comes to climate change in the UK and there are concerns about the country’s ability […]
Since the UK voted to leave the European Union in June 2016, Brexit has dominated UK politics and economic policy. Three and a half years after the referendum, the UK is yet to leave the EU, there is no certainty over if or when Brexit will take place, and the shape of future UK-EU relations is yet to be […]
As director of LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) up to 2016, British economist John Van Reenen led a team of academic researchers who produced detailed analysis of the consequences a divorce from the European Union would have on the UK economy. They predicted a fall in GDP, employment, direct investment, wages and productivity. Of these indicators, only employment […]
The Costs of Connection: How Data is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism. Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias. Stanford University Press. 2019.
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The age of Big Data has frequently been framed as a new frontier in human life, presenting both brand new opportunities and brand new challenges. In The Costs of Connection, Nick Couldry […]
Economic insecurity is attracting growing attention in social, academic, and policy circles. It has arguably risen for a number of reasons in recent years: the Great Recession (with its associated job instability), automation and the fear of job loss, the Chinese import shock, and ageing populations and migration, amongst others. As well as its obvious implications for family finances […]
Anti-systemic political movements have emerged in recent years in a large number of countries across the globe. These parties generally fuel their public support with anti-elite and anti-establishment rhetoric, which in Europe often translates into a strong critique to the European Union and its institutions. The EU is regarded by the supporters of anti-system movements as distant from the […]
Activists and academics alike hailed the conclusion of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety which offered hope that lessons had been learned from the carnage of the 2013 Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh. Lauded as a “landmark,” a “gamechanger,” a “breakthrough,” this transnational industrial relations agreement (TIRA) between 222 global brands and retailers and IndustriALL and UNI […]
One of the purported prizes of Brexit is the ability of the United Kingdom to strike free trade agreements with the world outside the European Union. The presumption is that those agreements would benefit the UK’s export basket, a principal component of which is financial services. It is therefore instructive to anticipate and stress-test the feasibility of such deals […]
I was recently asked to respond to a presentation on Australian children’s news media literacy at LSE. Shortly after, I participated in a roundtable on news literacy and disinformation, organised by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS). These two occasions have made me think more deeply about news literacy as a variant of media literacy, which has the potential to enable citizens […]
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 […]
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