Skip to main content
Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake argue that capitalism can be revitalised by promoting ‘further investment’ in what they call ‘intangible capital’. ... Read more...
11 April 2022
Jonathan Haskel and Stain Westlake explain why the UK government's focus on funding overlooks many levers for innovation policy. ... Read more...
30 March 2022
Speaking to Econ Films’ CoronaNomics show Lord Gus O’Donnell said he feared the impact of the lockdown was undermining the Prime Minister’s ambitions of reducing income and regional... Read more...
06 May 2020
Professor Stephen Machin, director of CEP, and Henry Overman, research director of CEP, contribute to an investigation into the differences in wages and opportunities across the country and why some towns and ... Read more...
09 March 2020
Transport upgrades are a key part of the Northern Powerhouse strategy, but there is some criticism about how much large-scale public investment in transport can act as a panacea for economic development. Profe... Read more...
26 February 2020
Policies targeted at specific places don't always benefit the intended people, the research director of the LSE's Centre for Economic Performance warns. ... Read more...
29 November 2019
But their ban has backfired, according to a report by the London School of Economics. The developers have simply walked away, causing the number of new homes being built to shrink and for prices to soar. And ... Read more...
01 November 2019
Read more...
31 October 2019
However, Professor Christian Hilber believes the ban could increase the "ghost town effect" as it inadvertently reduced the number of available homes due to building companies finding new work in surrounding areas. The ... Read more...
How can social mobility be improved? Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin write that merely tweaking existing policies will not transform society. They outline four major changes that have the potential to actually do so.... Read more...
30 October 2019
Max Nathan is an associate professor at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London. London's technology ecosystem is thriving. The city has more than 50,000 tech firms, with over 260,000 employe... Read more...
29 October 2019
Disadvantaged areas need evidence-based approaches, not policy innovation, argues the director of the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth. Evidence-based policy in disadvantaged places, What Works Centre for Eco... Read more...
25 October 2019
We are very pleased to have launched our collaborative work on disadvantaged places. This project looks in depth at policy, and the use of evidence, in places in the UK that are most disadvantaged, sometimes referred to... Read more...
24 October 2019
Meanwhile, some studies suggest that research productivity is slowing down, so that it takes more scientists to glean each new insight across a variety of fields. Fighting this slowdown is a worthy goal, but a difficult... Read more...
03 October 2019
A new paper by economists Nicholas Bloom, John Van Reenen and Heidi Williams canvasses the principal policies that governments have used to nurture innovation. A Toolkit of Policies to Promote Innovation, Nicholas Bloom... Read more...
20 September 2019
The winners of the 2019 WTO Essay Award for Young Economists are Jan Bakker of Oxford University and Federico Huneeus of Princeton University, who were ranked in equal first place by the Selection Panel. They will share ... Read more...
12 September 2019
City centres aren't dying as a response to big-box openings; they are only changing their commercial structure, writes Maria Sanchez-Vidal. ... Read more...
21 August 2019
Monica Langella and Alan Manning find that high unemployment in an area induces people to move away, and has an even stronger effect on the attractiveness of that area to potential movers. They also find that younger and... Read more...
19 August 2019
Facilitating trade in services, particularly knowledge-intensive ones, requires strong global cities as trade hubs, write Saul Estrin and Daniel Shapiro.... Read more...
25 July 2019
More than a century ago, the opening of the Panama Canal revolutionized international trade by making it much quicker and easier to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. But, write Stephan Maurer and Ferdinand ... Read more...
22 July 2019
A study at the London School of Economics has found that such bans damage local construction and tourism industries. At the same time, outsiders, who are banned from new-build homes, flood the market for older places, pu... Read more...
20 July 2019
Properties on the Lockington Crescent estate were on the market for between £4,500 and £7,000 - considerably cheaper than in London, where homes were up to 30% more expensive, according to economic historian ... Read more...
07 July 2019
Coverage of LSE's #EvidencePod at Evidence Week in Parliament.... Read more...
28 June 2019
Snippet ... 80% of new housing is going on so called brownfield land in the south-east but relatively little brownfield land in the right places at the you can develop a reasonable prices that have to build on some green... Read more...
20 May 2019
01 May 2019
Original information: Chiara Criscuolo, Ralf Martin, Henry G. Overman, John Van Reenen. Some Causal Effects of an Industrial Policy. American Economic Review, 2019, 109(1): 48-85. Governments around the world provide la... Read more...
14 April 2019
House prices indicate the value of canals as an environmental resource to local residents in England and Wales, write Stephen Gibbons, Cong Peng and Cheng Keat Tang. ... Read more...
09 April 2019
From Dr Guy Michaels, London School of Economics, UK Joseph Cotterill, in "Aid groups battle to reach cyclone survivors" (March 21), describes the terrible devastation that recent floods have wreaked in Mozambique and n... Read more...
27 March 2019
A new analysis suggests a trajectory and policy recommendations, write Adeline Pelletier, Susanna Khavul and Saul Estrin. In the past decade, mobile payment systems (MPS) have rapidly emerged in many developing economies... Read more...
25 March 2019
In this interview, Paul Cheshire shares his over 50 years of experience on urban economics. He talks about why "land is making a comeback", reasons for the dramatic turnaround in the value of land, the "key tools in the ... Read more...
18 March 2019
But according to a forthcoming paper from Felipe Carozzi, Christian Hilber and Xiaolun Yu of the London School of Economics, the clearest impact of Help to Buy has been to raise house prices, potentially by as much as 5 ... Read more...
09 March 2019
Snippet: ...home buyers. It was supposed to increase home-ownership rates among the young. Economists dispute whether it actually has. But according to a forthcoming paper from Felipe Carozzi, Christian Hilber and Xiaolu... Read more...
07 March 2019
But Christian Hilber, a professor of economic geography at the London School of Economics, says even if those empty apartments were occupied, they wouldn't help mitigate the affordable housing crisis.... Read more...
05 March 2019
Economists believe "firms are more productive if they're in larger cities" says Henry Overman, a Professor of Economic Geography at the LSE. What Works Well Centre for Economic Growth ... Read more...
04 March 2019
Most countries pursue policies that implicitly or explicitly aim at promoting 'compact urban form', but so far these policies have not been well-grounded in evidence. This column summarises the state of knowledge on the ... Read more...
22 February 2019
Such things occur outside idle thought experiments. Guy Michaels of the London School of Economics and Ferdinand Rauch, of the University of Oxford studied ... [paywall] ... Read more...
17 February 2019
Guy Michaels, of the London School of Economics, and Ferdinand Rauch, of the University of Oxford, studied the fortunes of Roman-era towns in Britain and ... [paywall] ... Read more...
14 February 2019
Klaus Desmet, David Krisztian Nagy, Dzhamilya Nigmatulina, Nathaniel Young The economic geography of transition economies has changed dramatically over the last quarter century, with large urban areas growing fast and ... Read more...
04 February 2019
The first is a strategy of reversal. This consists of interventions that aim to offset or compensate for the technological and market dynamics that cause cost disadvantages for value creation in left-behind places - plac... Read more...
21 January 2019
A British study estimated the impact of public subsidies in regions in difficulty. If a gain for the job was found but the big companies, first beneficiaries, do not change their behavior, notes the professor of economy ... Read more...
14 January 2019
Recent political developments in the US and Europe have led to renewed interest in the large and persistent regional disparities which plague our societies. These disparities have been partly driven by a secular decline ... Read more...
11 December 2018
Evidence-based principles for local policymakers seeking to design an effective industrial strategy - by Henry Overman and Naomi Clayton. ... Read more...
15 November 2018
Relocation is one successful example of public sector jobs boosting private sector activity, write Giulia Faggio, Teresa Schlüter and Philipp vom Berge. In a recent SERC discussion paper, we study t... Read more...
09 April 2018
Snippet: ...he Human Development Index (HDI) devised by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq in 1990, and widely used in international development since then. Others, such as the measures of happiness promoted by... Read more...
13 January 2018
Guy Michaels roundtable discussion guest. Sitting on a gold mine - but why do some countries rich in precious metals, stones or oil struggle to reap the benefits? An abundance of natural resources can bring... Read more...
07 December 2017
New job openings attract not only local workers, but also those living relatively near, write Alan Manning and Barbara Petrongolo..... Related publications "How Local Are Labor Markets? Evidence fro... Read more...
01 December 2017
However, the regions that are now calling for special rules do not belong to those parts of the country that Brexit is likely to hit particularly hard economically. According to calculations by economists at t... Read more...
27 November 2017
An excellent study published last month by a research group at the London School of Economics looks at the differences in economic activity in varying parts of the UK. The finding are intriguing and sometimes ... Read more...
26 October 2017
The South-East is not the country’s productivity engine, rather a band stretching west from the capital towards Bristol is, according to a new LSE report which challenges prevailing wisdom on the uneven ... Read more...
12 October 2017
Another summary is offered in the introduction to this report Bucking the Trend (Jo Blanden, 2006) "A prime motivation behind the Government’s child poverty reduction strategy is the belief that gro... Read more...
Financial services aren’t as London-centric as the creative industries, and the coast-inland divide is growing, write Sandra Bernick, Richard Davies, and Anna Valero. The UK’s financial services... Read more...
02 October 2017
Article by Sandra Bernick, Richard Davies and Anna Valero: The UK’s financial services industry is not nearly as London-centric as the creative industries. Rather than the South East of England being the... Read more...
25 September 2017
The M4 corridor is more productive for the British economy than the southeast, report finds A study into the industrial breakdown of the country by the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) at the London Sc... Read more...
22 September 2017
According to a study by the London School of Economics (LSE), with the participation of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, most human misery is not due to economic factors, but to faile... Read more...
13 August 2017
A London School of Economics report in June showed that Britain was one of just three out of 28 countries that saw wages fall in real terms between 2007 and 2015. The only country where wages fell more... Read more...
09 August 2017
We are also now beginning to see why Scots voted 2:1 to remain in the EU. The thinktank Centre for Cities has predicted that Scotland’s major cities will suffer the worst consequences of Brexit, hard or ... Read more...
30 July 2017
Brexit will hit hardest in the South of England, according to new research. But although the more prosperous cities of the South will lose the most, they will find it easiest to adapt. Aberdeen in the Nor... Read more...
29 July 2017
Brexit will hit Scottish oil capital Aberdeen the hardest of all Britain’s cities, with London also ranking highly and facing a medium-term blow to economic output of as much as 2.6 percent, academics at... Read more...
28 July 2017
27 July 2017
In total, the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) calculates, it would be best for the British economy to remain part of the EU’s common market. Related publications ‘#GE2017Economists: The... Read more...
10 June 2017
Article by Henry Overman The elections are barely behind us now, and we should keep asking the question, ‘What are the economic forces polarising the UK?’ A big part of the story concerns the ge... Read more...
09 June 2017
A year ago, in June 2016, the British voted on their country's EU membership. Economists and financial markets were in bright turmoil and warned of the consequences of a Brexit. Today, twelve months later,... Read more...
08 June 2017
The London School of Economics (LSE) has published a report assessing all of the party manifestos and how respective policies will affect key voter issues. Intended to be "objective, brief and non-tech... Read more...
For the first time in years, UK voters have a real choice between economic models The Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics has published a series of election analyses, looking a... Read more...
06 June 2017
The need to give the North a boost was highlighted by a new study by the Centre for Economic Performance, part of the London School of Economics, which said the Government’s Northern Powerhouse project h... Read more...
03 June 2017
A study on how the relative importance of a place’s suitability for agriculture and trade has changed over time, by Vernon Henderson, Tim Squires, Adam Storeygard and David Weil Related publications ... Read more...
06 March 2017
Henrik Kleven and Camille Landais, Economica, 14 March 2017 DOI: 10.1111/ecca.12230 ... Read more...
22 February 2017
Economists point to three factors to explain how population is distributed: geographical characteristics, agglomeration, and history. This column, taken from a new Vox eBook, examines ... Read more...
31 January 2017
Trump’s true legacy will be that of rural vandalism on a colossal scale. A unique wilderness at Menie destroyed for a golf course. This was a site of Special Scientific Interest, the highest environmenta... Read more...
01 November 2016
Data to calculate Gross National Happiness (GNH) includes asking respondents to measure their perceived quality of life on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 representing the worst and 10 the best possible outcome. The latest r... Read more...
06 August 2016
The Society's Annual Conference was held at the University of Sussex, 21-23 March. This report was prepared by Ferdinando Giugliano, focusing on four fields of economic research: development economics; political economy;... Read more...
01 July 2016
Areas experiencing poor economic performance are often targeted by governments with programmes aimed at improving employment. However, there are concerns that any increases in employment come at the cost of reduced emplo... Read more...
07 April 2016
Weekly recommendations include: On the LSE Business Review blog, work by Nguyen and Van Reenen using an RDD to show that tax credits increased R&D spending and innovation among SMEs in the UK. The item was published by... Read more...
18 March 2016
Scholars who have read the paper say it makes a valuable contribution to the field. The model ''is stylized but rich enough, I think, to capture some of the main features of the sector,'' explains John Van Reenan, an eco... Read more...
15 March 2016
Article by Guy Michaels Over the last 30 years, floods have killed more than 500,000 people globally, and displaced about 650 million more. In a recent paper published by the Centre for Economic Performance, we examined... Read more...
09 March 2016
In a recent paper published by the Centre for Economic Performance, we examined why so many people are hit by devastating floods. We looked at 53 large floods, which affected more than 1,800 cities in 40 countries, from ... Read more...
03 March 2016
Article by Guy Michaels Over the last 30 years, floods have killed more than 500,000 people globally, and displaced about 650m more. In a recent paper published by the Centre for Economic Performance, we examined why so... Read more...
01 March 2016
Professor Paul Cheshire accused the tycoon of hugely exaggerating the size and benefits of his stake in Scotland and said promises made by him were falling apart at the seams. This article was published by the Mail on ... Read more...
10 January 2016
The UK taxpayer is left to pick up the cost of flooding because housebuilders do not contribute enough when building homes, giving them an incentive to build on floodplains, according to research. Flooding costs between... Read more...
01 January 2016
Consider a paper presented at the Summer Session of the National Bureau of Economic Research by Raj Chetty, Bloomberg Professor of Economics at Harvard University, ''Innovation Policy and the Lifecycle of Inventors.'' (T... Read more...
10 August 2015
Article by Keyu Jin Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang recently cited job creation as vital to his country's ''ultimate goal of stability in growth''. His observation could not be more accurate. In fact, one of the mos... Read more...
04 June 2015
New research from a group of economists at Harvard, the Treasury Department, and the London School of Economics provides a particularly vivid illustration of how disadvantage can harm the economy at large. The researcher... Read more...
16 March 2015
New report from Inclusive Prosperity Commission, transatlantic group convened by the Center for American Progress, will present policy proposals to promote broadly shared prosperity throughout the United States Washingt... Read more...
15 January 2015
[Richard] Layard and his colleagues at the Wellbeing research program at the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance concluded that a child's emotional health is far more important to their satisfacti... Read more...
10 November 2014
Article by Paul Dolan There are two main sources of evidence that technology is creating distracted mindsets amongst us. The first is from neuroscience: Technology physically alters the way our brains work. The brains ... Read more...
18 August 2014