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 […]
Why Not Default? The Political Economy of Sovereign Debt. Jerome Roos. Princeton University Press. 2019.
In Why Not Default? The Political Economy of Sovereign Debt—a book based on his doctoral dissertation—Jerome Roos systematically unpacks the structural characteristics of the contemporary debt market. Leveraging analysis of historical evidence, the author proposes a theory of creditor structural power and high spillover costs […]
Boris Johnson recently tweeted a video of a baby making his first steps. He captioned it ‘Let’s get Brexit done’. Yet these baby steps post-Brexit may not be so pleasant. In fact, the UK government admits that they will not take place at all – at least not in October, as Johnson’s tweets promise. In the latest round of […]
Whether you take the bus, the train or a car, commuting equals boredom, occasional strain and mostly a lot of lost time. On average, commuting takes up 38 minutes a day summing up to several 24-hour days a year. Such a massive time investment should have a serious return, right? Obviously, it does. Commuting enables many of us to […]
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is poised to transform the business world. It is not the first time that technologies have done so. Decision support systems, expert systems (already integrating AI) and knowledge management systems, which were promoted by the largest consulting firms and IT manufacturers, monopolised the interest of companies in the late 1990s. Yet, despite the undeniable benefits they […]
Each year I give an undergraduate lecture on student loans. It is a thoroughly depressing two-hour slot. But each year it also reminds me how the student experience has changed since I began my undergraduate degree in 1997. One memory stands out in particular. It is the memory of visiting four large UK retail banks in my local village […]
Many observers believe that implicit bank bailout guarantees were an important driver of the global financial crisis. They also blame national supervisory authorities as another key factor. As a consequence, the formation of the European Banking Union (EBU) was presumably the single-most important institutional response of the European Union (EU) to ensure that taxpayers’ money is not used again for […]
In recent years, repeated boom-bust cycles in cryptocurrencies valuations have generated waves of media and public attention, helping to attract a growing number of retail and professional investors to this new asset class. Regulatory environment and markets research, however, lag these developments.
In general, there is no consensus in the markets and amongst regulatory authorities as to the preferred classification […]
Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State. Samuel Stein. Verso. 2019.
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The real estate industry is now worth $217 trillion, which is 36 times the value of all the gold in the world. What is more, it forms 60 per cent of global assets, and it is how one of the most powerful people on earth […]
There are competing visions for British trade policy: ‘Global Britain’, which sees a sovereign Britain trading free from the shackles of the EU on the basis of WTO rules, with an ability to shape its own rules; and what might be called the “European continuity vision” that sees UK interests closely linked to the EU. Looking beyond the immediate […]
Imagine a prevalent phenomenon in the workplace: A leader has several direct reports, but only one or some of them are included in his or her inner circle to enjoy more opportunities for learning and growth. You may wonder: What chemistry has this group of followers generated in the daily interaction with the leader so that they are “chosen” […]
In principle, as is said for services more generally, the link between managing the work force and operative service performance is particularly strong in aviation, especially in airports serving as the logistical hubs for passengers as well as freight. On top, sound employment relations and working conditions are connected to service processes that require a high level in terms […]
The founder of Rakuten, Inc., the largest e-commerce site in Japan, now among the world’s largest by sales, decided to introduce an English-only policy in his company in 2012. As global business accelerated and it shifted from a Japan-based venture to a global internet services company, ‘Englishnisation’ initiatives were launched to accelerate the smooth integration of 17,000 employees worldwide. […]
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 […]
Even the most open of market economies accepts professional monopolies. Clients hand over decision-making to doctors and lawyers based on reputations for expert knowledge and reliable practice. And governments protect professionals against competition from frauds as well as unlicensed practitioners. All of this stands in contrast to, say, the market for widgets, where the customer is always right and […]
Are you worried about big businesses and monopoly? Perhaps you should be, because they can charge you high prices and give you low-quality services. That’s why we have antitrust law in America and competition policy in Europe to stop companies from buying up each other and merging into monopoly.
But that’s not the whole story. Technologies come and go, taking […]
The UN Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) 2019, out in September, is the latest significant international science-based synthesis report to call for an urgent transformation of current socio-environmental-economic systems. The report draws on recent advances in the natural sciences and maintains that the negative trends in climate change and biodiversity loss presage the crossing of ecosystem tipping points, which […]
Social Mobility and its Enemies. Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin. Pelican. 2018.
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Have you ever wondered why those at the top tend to come from the same backgrounds? Or how severe the social mobility crisis in Britain really is—and what has, and continues to, cause it? If so, then Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin’s recent […]
The countryside is generally perceived as a quiet and restrained place, and yet it has a long history of rebellion, riots and uprising in response to external pressures and changes. The Rebecca Riots in west and mid-Wales which lasted from 1839 to 1843 have gone down in history as a period where farmers took direct action at the perceived […]
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