A new Online Harms White Paper, published jointly by the UK government’s Department for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport and the Home Office, calls for a new system of regulation for tech companies with the goal of preventing online harm. In brief, the paper (which outlines government proposals for consultation in advance of passing new legislation) calls for an independent […]
Solar geoengineering (also known as solar radiation management) is a technology in its infancy – and it is controversial. It has the potential to reverse or mitigate some of the global warming caused by greenhouse gases by either releasing cooling particles (for instance sulphur) into the stratosphere, or by modifying clouds over the oceans so that they reflect more […]
Talented individuals are often excluded from leadership positions if they belong to a group that faces discrimination. Such discrimination is, of course, extremely hurtful and unfair to the individuals. But is it also costly in a more general sense?
In particular, do corporations become less profitable when they adopt discriminatory attitudes and exclude highly qualified individuals from leadership roles? How […]
Britain has an extensive canal and navigable river network, which played a vital role in transporting goods from the Industrial Revolution through the 18th, 19th and early part of the 20th centuries. Their use for transporting freight had all but disappeared by the mid-20th century, and many had fallen into disrepair or been abandoned. Since then, the canal and […]
While economists extol the virtues of trade, advocates of free trade face stiff political headwinds these days. The economic ideas for the benefits of trade go back more than 200 years to Adam Smith and David Ricardo, but empirical evidence for these benefits has been much harder to come by and is much more recent.
In particular, empirical economists have […]
The level of automation in consumer-oriented products is increasing, yet the simple presence of automated functionalities does not mean that consumers would accept and use them. Instead, the acceptance and use of automation may vary significantly between the different users of the very same product. This indicates that the management of technological trust has a central role not only […]
The assessment of credit risk is a critical part of the macro-prudential analysis, with the aggregate non-performing loan (NPL) ratio serving as a proxy for the economy-wide probability of default of the banking sector’s overall loan exposure. High NPL ratios affect banks’ balance sheets and profitability, overall slowing down economic growth. Therefore, the factors driving NPL ratios in different […]
In the past decade, mobile payment systems (MPS) have rapidly emerged in many developing economies, addressing several well-known gaps in the provision of financial services. MPS, also known as mobile money, has allowed consumers who are often unbanked or underbanked, to transact and to store money more efficiently, thereby reducing the costs of engaging in undertaking all transactions, including […]
Fundamental changes in information technologies have profound implications for labour markets, for the production and spread of knowledge, and for the evolution of politics and beliefs. But competition among producers also influences the use of these technologies and their impact on multiple dimensions of life. The introduction of Gutenberg’s printing press crystallised these dynamics and profoundly shaped the long-run […]
My recent research (joint with Warn Lekfuangfu) considers the extent to which societal shifts have been responsible for an increased tendency for women to sort into traditional male roles over time, versus individual level childhood factors (for example, socioeconomic status, parental time inputs, peer effects). In other words, we are interested in the extent that childhood factors, which vary within […]
Isn’t the ‘platform’ economy wonderful? Uber. Deliveroo. Convenience and low prices for customers. Really, what’s not to like? But what do platform workers themselves think about what they do? Digital ‘platforms’ broker work to freelancers in an online marketplace for talent. Jobs in these new, mostly service, industries offer freedom and flexible working conditions. Many workers value this as […]
What drives radical shifts in regulatory policy? A common answer to this question is that new policies emerge as a response to the demands of a rapidly changing environment. When existing policies become less relevant, they are replaced with more suitable approaches that address the current issues more effectively. The digital economy, for example, has brought with it a […]
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on June 20th 2018 that recreational cannabis would become legal in Canada as of October 17th. The major social policy change formed part of the general election platform for Trudeau’s Liberal Party in 2015, which suggested that “To ensure that we keep marijuana out of the hands of children, and the profits out of […]
Scholars and practitioners alike have extensively discussed what makes different firms choose to invest in different places, and have looked at what this can mean for both the host countries and sending countries. But what can policymakers do in practice to make a real difference to their country or region? Do the classic “tried and tested” methods really do […]
How many social media profiles do you have? Do you feel that you express yourself accurately through these profiles? Do they reflect who you are? And who are you in the first place? Are you always the same? Do you present yourself the same way at different times and on different social media?
Profile making has become ubiquitous in digital […]
Sustainable finance ended 2018 on a high. Never before has so much capital been committed to integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors. But financial markets also entered an unnerving cycle. If we are not careful, growing financial turbulence could divert attention away from the urgent need to scale up investment in climate action and sustainable development. Instead of […]
The UK’s vote to leave the EU has generated fears that UK firms are moving investment abroad because of Brexit. For example, media reports have documented that both large UK companies such as Barclays, HSBC and EasyJet, and smaller companies such as Crust & Crumb, a Northern Irish pizza maker, have invested in the EU27 in response to Brexit.
Has […]
Stagnating real wages and falling labour shares across developed economies have stimulated a renewed interest in the question of how, and to what extent, rents are shared with labour. Nicholas Kaldor’s (1957) long-held stylised fact that the fraction of national income going to labour is fixed has been questioned, for instance, by Karabarbounis and Neiman (2014), who show that the global labour […]
Our work at the Institute for the Future of Work (IFOW) has been focusing on two major forces of disruption that the UK economy is experiencing. The first, Brexit, will involve a sharp change in the structure of economic activity. Membership of the European Union has shaped the British model of capitalism and the structure, and operation, of core industrial […]
The impact of the digital revolution is being felt across all industries. The advent of computerisation, online communications, algorithms and workflow software has certainly made its mark.
Leadership education tends to assume that all leaders are at the top of some pyramid structure with organisations that require vision, direction setting and motivation to achieve targets and goals. Digital technologies are fundamentally […]
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