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Online comment, analyses, and debate by CEP researchers on today's economic and social policy issues.

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OPENing up military innovation: The causal effects of 'bottom up' reforms to US defence research

Sabrina T. Howell, Jason Rathje, John Van Reenen and Jun Wong discuss US Air Force reforms to research contracting, and how governments could benefit from more bottom-up approaches to innovation. Read more...
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Why the UK-India Young Professionals Scheme might end up benefitting a handful of large companies

The announcement of a new visa for young, professional Indians to work in the UK could prove popular - but an eye needs to be kept on how it ends up being used in practice, writes Alan Manning. Read more...

All Blogs

Blog
Economics Observatory:
What is the future of commuting to work?

Around half the UK labour force is currently working from home. Paul Mizen, Nick Bloom, Shivani Taneja analyse survey data suggesting that spending two to three days a week at home is the most common expected working pat...Read more...

Nick Bloom, Paul Mizen and Shivani Taneja

12 May 2021

Blog
VoxEU:
OPENing up military innovation: The causal effects of 'bottom up' reforms to US defence research

In recent decades, US defence R&D seems to have lost its lustre. To combat the declining innovation, in 2018 the US Air Force reformed its contracting procedures to allow applicants more freedom to suggest projects with ...Read more...

Sabrina T. Howell, Jason Rathje, John Van Reenen and Jun Wong

8 May 2021

Blog
LSE Blogs: politics and policy:
Why the UK-India Young Professionals Scheme might end up benefitting a handful of large companies

The announcement of a new visa for young, professional Indians to work in the UK could prove popular - but an eye needs to be kept on how it ends up being used in practice, writes Alan Manning....Read more...

Alan Manning

6 May 2021

Blog
Economics Observatory:
Update: Which firms and industries have been most affected by Covid-19?

Businesses across the UK have been negatively affected by the pandemic, but the damage has not been equal. Certain sectors and certain firms within them have suffered more than others - and many have faced highly uncerta...Read more...

Nick Bloom, Paul Mizen, Pawel Smietanka and Gregory Thwaites

5 May 2021

Blog
LSE Blogs:
Government urban regeneration initiative failed to improve Britain's most deprived areas

In 1994, John Major's Conservative government launched an initiative to improve a range of societal issues through regeneration. The Single Regeneration Budget ran for nearly a decade, but failed to create opportunities ...Read more...

Henry Overman

4 May 2021

Blog
VoxEU:
Lockdowns widen the gender gap in mental health

Women, the young, and the less educated have borne the brunt of the economic damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns in terms of job and earnings losses. As this column reports, women have also suffered far ...Read more...

Abigail Adams-Prassl, Teodora Boneva, Marta Golin and Christopher Rauh

27 April 2021

Blog
POID Blog:
Risk of Business Failure: POID Tracker

Peter Lambert and John Van Reenen track how UK businesses view their risks of bankruptcy over the next three months, finding extensions to COVID support schemes have helped avert a wave of bankruptcies, but risks remain....Read more...

Peter Lambert and John Van Reenen

27 April 2021

Blog
Notes from Poland:
Why is Poland's economy emerging so strongly from the pandemic? A comparison with the UK

Poland is no longer Europe's "green island" of growth, as it was during the 2008 financial crisis when it was the only country not to fall into recession. Yet its economy has managed to avoid the pandemic-induced trouble...Read more...

Pawel Bukowski and Wojciech Paczos

27 April 2021

Blog
VoxEU:
Why housing is built in flood-prone coastal areas

Despite the higher susceptibility to floods and a growing climate crisis, more than 10% of the world's population live in low-elevation coastal zones, and that percentage is growing. Yatang Lin, Thomas McDermott and Guy ...Read more...

Yatang Lin, Thomas K.J. McDermott and Guy Michaels

22 April 2021

Blog
Economics Observatory:
What is the future of working from home?

Working from home has become more common during the pandemic, but only in certain sectors. Jonathan Haskel writes about the likelihood that the practice will be permanently adopted depends on perceptions of workforce pro...Read more...

Jonathan Haskel

20 April 2021

Blog
LSE Blogs:
Contrary to the impression given by the Sewell Report, things for ethnic minorities in the UK labour market are not getting better

Using estimates from the Labour Force Survey, Alan Manning and Rebecca Rose fill in some of the gaps of the government's Sewell Report on race and ethnic disparities. Comparing disparities in pay, employment, and unemplo...Read more...

Alan Manning and Rebecca Rose

19 April 2021

Blog
CVER Blogs:
Apprenticeships, the Levy and COVID-19

Examining the impact of these various changes to the apprenticeship system on recent enrolments, and then briefly describe the initial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on apprenticeships....Read more...

14 April 2021

Blog
LSE Blogs:
Beyond income inequality: factoring in non-monetary rewards

While many researchers, policy makers, and interest groups are concerned with income inequality and its impact on society, much of the debate has focused on inequality in wages. In contrast, relatively little work has ad...Read more...

Andrew Clark, Maria Cotofan and Richard Layard

12 April 2021

Blog
Economics Observatory:
Ethnic minorities and the UK labour market: are things getting better?

Alan Manning and Rebecca Rose compare disparities in pay, employment and unemployment among different ethnic groups in the UK finding that there has been little change over the past 25 years. Indeed, for black, Pakistani...Read more...

Alan Manning and Rebecca Rose

7 April 2021

Blog
Economics Observatory:
A year in the UK labour market: what's happened over the coronavirus pandemic?

Jonathan Wadsworth explains how the performance of the UK labour market during Covid-19 shows that the most notable effects of a downturn caused by restrictions on mobility are the more dynamic aspects: falls in hours, h...Read more...

Jonathan Wadsworth

1 April 2021

Blog
LSE Blogs:
Why central London has seen the biggest rises in house prices, despite COVID

As many predicted, the pandemic led to a demand for bigger homes and gardens. But with supply limited by Britain's strict planning regulations, and the market propped up by a stamp duty waiver and the furlough scheme, pr...Read more...

Paul Cheshire, Christian Hilber and Olivier Schöni

31 March 2021

Blog
VoxEU:
Aiming for zero Covid-19 to ensure economic growth

With the pandemic continuing now for over a year, it has become clear that there is no trade-off between health and wealth. Successful pandemic management has relied on aiming for and protecting Covid-free green zones. T...Read more...

Philippe Aghion, Patrick Artus, Miquel Oliu-Barton and Bary Pradelski

31 March 2021

Blog
Economics Observatory:
Update: How is coronavirus affecting the self-employed?

A year into the Covid-19 crisis, it is widely recognised that the UK's self-employed workers have been among the hardest hit. Survey evidence shows that the latest lockdown is once again leaving the self-employed with lo...Read more...

Jack Blundell and Maria Ventura

29 March 2021

Blog
LSE Blogs:
UK gender pay gap reporting: a crude but effective policy?

Forcing employers to reveal their gender pay gap has been effective in its main goal of narrowing the gap. The difference between women's and men's pay has shrunk by just under a fifth at affected employers. Jack Blundel...Read more...

Jack Blundell

29 March 2021

Blog
Rebuilding Macroeconomics:
Understanding Educational Progression at the Local Level: Portsmouth, The Northern City on the South Coast

Understanding regional inequalities is likely to be key to understanding the UK's overall macroeconomic performance. In this article, Jo Blanden, Hector Espinoza, Sandra McNally and Guglielmo Ventura analyse the educatio...Read more...

Jo Blanden, Hector Espinoza, Sandra McNally and Guglielmo Ventura

25 March 2021

Blog
LSE Blogs:
World Happiness Report: living long and living well

The 2021 World Happiness Report comes as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to claim lives and lay waste to livelihoods around the world. Richard Layard and Ekaterina Oparina introduce the WELLBY Approach and look at how we...Read more...

Richard Layard and Ekaterina Oparina

19 March 2021

Blog
VoxEU:
Barriers to net-zero: How firms can make or break the green transition

Many countries are striving for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, requiring massive investments over the next decades. But many companies, especially smaller ones, will not be able or willing to invest in cleaner techno...Read more...

Ralph De Haas, Ralf Martin, Mirabelle Muûls and Helena Schweiger

19 March 2021

Blog
LSE Blogs:
Almost two-thirds of Black British young people would be reluctant to get a COVID vaccine

We may need to vaccinate under-18s to get the pandemic under control. Patrick Sturgis (LSE), Lindsey Macmillan, Jake Anders and Gill Wyness (UCL Institute of Education) on the findings of a UCL CEPEO / LSE COVID-19 surve...Read more...

Jake Anders, Lindsey Macmillan, Patrick Sturgis and Gill Wyness

17 March 2021

Blog
UK in a Changing Europe:
Trade after Brexit: the initial numbers

Thomas Sampson argues that, although the full effects of Brexit won't be known for many years, regulatory divergence is likely to further reduce trade, as firms face the challenge of satisfying different regulations in t...Read more...

Thomas Sampson

17 March 2021

Blog
VoxEU:
Working from home is revolutionising the UK labour market

Attitudes towards working from home have changed substantially since the start of the pandemic. This column discusses the findings from a survey of 5,000 working adults in the UK in January and February 2021, which sugge...Read more...

Nick Bloom, Paul Mizen and Shivani Taneja

15 March 2021

Blog
What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth:
Does benchmarking help firms grow?

Gonzalo Nunez-Chaim explores the evidence on the impact of benchmarking - measuring and comparing performance across and within firms. Finding that, for such a popular approach, it's surprising how little we know about t...Read more...

Gonzalo Nunez-Chaim

15 March 2021

Blog
Economics Observatory:
How have school closures affected children's mental health?

Children in year groups that were not priorities to return to school before the 2020 summer holidays experienced greater average declines in their mental health. As schools re-open, it is vital to balance efforts to make...Read more...

Jo Blanden, Claire Crawford, Laura Fumagalli and Birgitta Rabe

15 March 2021

Blog
LSE Blogs:
Work and children: is the motherhood penalty in Spain too high for working women?

Spain has seen a huge influx of women into the workplace, but men and women's experiences of work remain very different. Claudia Hupkau and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela say there is scope for new family-friendly policies to h...Read more...

Claudia Hupkau and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela

12 March 2021

Blog
LSE Blogs:
How a focus on wellbeing can help us make better policy decisions

Deaths, hospitalisations and cases have been the default metrics for policymakers during the pandemic. Paul Dolan (LSE) and a team of behavioural science experts propose a broader way of measuring policy outcomes that co...Read more...

Celia Blanco-Jimenez, Liam Delaney, Paul Dolan, Georgios Kavetsos, Christian Krekel, Laura Kudrna, Kate Laffan, Richard Layard, Gus O'Donnell and Jet Sanders

5 March 2021

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Budget 2021: while important steps have been taken, bolder and better coordinated action is needed for a sustainable recovery

Anna Valero writes that the underlying and urgent issues that were facing the UK economy before the pandemic, such as high levels of inequality and weak productivity, are still present, and are indeed more pressing than ...Read more...

Anna Valero

4 March 2021

Blog
LSE Blogs:
COVID-19 and self-employment ten months into the crisis

Almost a year into the crisis, the latest lockdown has hit the self-employed hard in the UK. In January 2021, 57% of surveyed self-employed workers were earning less than £1,000 per month, up from 31% in January 2020 an...Read more...

Jack Blundell and Maria Ventura

2 March 2021

Blog
LSE Blogs:
Black women are missing in the UK's top 1%

How likely is it that women end up working in jobs that allow them to be among the top 1%, 10%, 20%, and top third of earners? Drawing on the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS), Teresa Almeida, Erika Brodnock, and Grac...Read more...

Teresa Almeida, Erika Brodnock and Grace Lordan

1 March 2021

Blog
LSE Blogs:
LSE Festival 2021 | Many of us will return to offices - but not for the whole week

As the pandemic drags on, employers have got better at organising their staff to work from home, says Daniela Scur (Cornell University and LSE). Not all will return to the office, and many will never go back to the five-...Read more...

Daniela Scur

1 March 2021

Blog
Economics Observatory:
What do new UK trade data reveal about the impact of lockdown and Brexit?

Thomas Sampson writes that lockdown probably contributed to the fall in UK exports and imports reported in the January 2021 trade data. But the bigger declines in trade with the European Union than with other countries a...Read more...

Thomas Sampson

1 March 2021

Blog
LSE Business Review:
To recover from Covid and Brexit, the UK must upskill its workforce

The twin forces of Covid-19 and Brexit are altering the skills that people require to succeed in work. Skill levels remain low in the UK, compared to other advanced nations. About 30% of adults have low skill levels in l...Read more...

Josh De Lyon and Swati Dhingra

23 February 2021

Blog
LSE Covid-19 Blog:
We can tackle the climate emergency and grow the economy at the same time

The idea that economic growth is incompatible with tackling the climate emergency is wrong, says John Van Reenen (LSE). He sets out how technological innovation and better management can bring about sustainable growth....Read more...

John Van Reenen

18 February 2021

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Increasing support for clean innovation: a win-win-win strategy?

Political support for government spending to deal with the economic aftermath of the COVID pandemic has grown. It is now greater than during the 2008 financial crisis, and 'build back better' pledges have multiplied. Ral...Read more...

Ralf Martin, Sam Unsworth, Anna Valero and Dennis Verhoeven

11 February 2021

Blog
LSE US Centre:
Trade protection along supply chains: how antidumping measures against China hurt downstream industries

Production processes are often no longer confined to a single country; supply chains can be fragmented across great distances. By contrast, tariffs are often used by individual countries to protect certain industries. In...Read more...

Chad Bown, Paola Conconi, Aksel Erbahar and Lorenzo Trimarchi

10 February 2021

Blog
VoxEu:
After Brexit: Views of leading economists on future prospects for the UK and EU economies

The UK's exit from the EU was finally completed on 1 January 2021. The IGM Forum at Chicago Booth invited its panels of leading European and US economists to express their views on the likely long-term effects of Brexit ...Read more...

Romesh Vaitilingam

8 February 2021

Blog
VoxEU:
Trade protection along supply chains: The negative effects of tariffs on downstream sectors

In a world in which production processes are fragmented across countries, the effects of tariffs propagate along supply chains, with firms in downstream industries suffering from protection upstream. This column studies...Read more...

Chad Bown, Paola Conconi, Aksel Erbahar and Lorenzo Trimarchi

3 February 2021

Blog
VoxEU:
Disunited Kingdom? Brexit, trade and Scottish independence

The Scottish National Party is calling for a second referendum on independence from the UK. This column examines the likely effect of changes in trade costs resulting from independence and Brexit on the Scottish economy,...Read more...

Hanwei Huang, Thomas Sampson and Patrick Schneider

3 February 2021

Blog
UK in a Changing Europe:
Brexit, trade and Scottish independence

Hanwei Huang, Thomas Sampson, and Patrick Schneider analysed the economics of Scottish independence by looking at its impact on trade. Independence would put a new border between Scotland and the rest of the UK, introduc...Read more...

Hanwei Huang, Thomas Sampson and Patrick Schneider

3 February 2021

Blog
The state of working Britain:
Covid-19 and the Youth Labour Market. The Kids are (Probably) Alright

Jonathan Wadsworth considers youth unemployment in light of the UK's furlough scheme, the end of lockdowns and economic downturn....Read more...

Jonathan Wadsworth

1 February 2021

Blog
VoxEU:
Regulation chills minor (but not radical) technological innovations

While there is suggestive evidence that regulations may have a stifling effect on innovation, there is as yet no rigorous economic framework to quantify the magnitude of such regulatory effects on innovation and the aggr...Read more...

Philippe Aghion, Antonin Bergeaud and John Van Reenen

1 February 2021

Blog
VoxEU:
The trade and welfare benefits of deep trade agreements

Deep trade agreements are widespread and have taken the world beyond tariff liberalisation in goods trade. As the importance of global supply chains and the services sector increased across the world, shallow tariff redu...Read more...

Swati Dhingra, Rebecca Freeman and Hanwei Huang

21 January 2021

Blog
LSE Business Review:
New incentives for businesses to train their employees are needed for economic recovery from COVID-19

The need to retrain or upskill the workforce has become ever more urgent due to sharp changes in skills demand induced by the pandemic, write Jiaqi Li, Guglielmo Ventura and Anna Valero....Read more...

Jiaqi Li, Anna Valero and Guglielmo Ventura

18 January 2021

Blog
Bloomberg Stephanomics Podcasts:
The economic cost of Covid-19's mental health crisis

Richard Layard talks about why the coronavirus should make us rethink how we treat mental illness, how "building back better" should mean services rather than roads and railways, and why money really doesn't make us happ...Read more...

Richard Layard

13 January 2021

Blog
LSE Blogs:
Further school closures mean bleak prospects for the young

Further closures of schools, while necessary to contain the spread of COVID-19, are likely to exacerbate educational inequalities. Learning losses could have long-term consequences for the life chances of children from d...Read more...

Lee Elliot Major and Andrew Eyles

8 January 2021

Blog
Institute for the Future of Work:
The impact of Covid-19 on technology adoption

Anna Valero and Professor John Van Reenen examine the evidence on technology adoption through the pandemic and what it means for the UK's future of work and productivity crisis. New evidence offers a basis for guarded te...Read more...

Anna Valero and John Van Reenen

7 January 2021

Blog
VoxEU:
Closing the gap between vocational and general education: University Technical Colleges in England

England introduced University Technical Colleges - hybrid education institutions which combine general and vocational education - in 2010. This column presents the results from the first evaluation of the causal effect o...Read more...

Stephen Machin, Sandra McNally, Camille Terrier and Guglielmo Ventura

23 December 2020

Blog
LSE Blogs:
What happened when parents lost their jobs during lockdown?

Many parents had to cope with losing their jobs or part of their income at the same time as they were forced to home school. How did this affect their children's learning and their mental health? Claudia Hupkau, Ingo Isp...Read more...

Claudia Hupkau, Ingo Isphording, Stephen Machin and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela

21 December 2020

Blog
LSE Covid-19 blog:
Why bike thefts, anti-social behaviour and drug offences have gone up during the pandemic

How has crime evolved in England and Wales during the pandemic? Tom Kirchmaier and Carmen Villa-Llera (Centre for Economic Performance, LSE) look at the effects of lockdown and job loss on the kinds of crimes being commi...Read more...

Tom Kirchmaier and Carmen Villa-Llera

17 December 2020

Blog
FE Week:
Why urgent support is needed to address UK skills deficit

New incentives are needed for businesses to train their employees for a post-Covid world, writes Guglielmo Ventura....Read more...

Guglielmo Ventura

16 December 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Lockdown shows us it is not work that attracts us to big cities - but the social life

Covid-19's effect on the social lives of city dwellers - being able to meet at the pub, restaurants or theatre - may be more relevant for the future of cities than its impact on work, write Gabriel Ahlfeldt, Fabian Bald,...Read more...

Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt, Fabian Bald, Duncan Roth and Tobias Seidel

11 December 2020

Blog
LSE Brexit:
COVID-19 has disrupted businesses' ability to prepare for Brexit, but the lack of clarity on the UK-EU relationship is worse

Almost half of businesses report that COVID-19 has negatively affected their ability to prepare for Brexit. More than half listed uncertainty on the future arrangements between the UK and EU as a limitation on their abil...Read more...

Josh De Lyon, Swati Dhingra and Edoardo Tolva

7 December 2020

Blog
LSE History:
The Centre for Economic Performance marks 30 years of world-class research

LSE's Centre for Economic Performance, one of Europe's leading economic research centres, is marking its 30th anniversary in 2020/21. A new video, released to mark the Centre's 30th anniversary, highlights the breadth of...Read more...

Helen Ward

1 December 2020

Blog
The State of Working Britain:
Long-Term Unemployment and the Covid Downturn

With the first signs of rising unemployment under the crisis are beginning to ripple through the labour market, Jonathan Wadsworth examines trends in employment against unemployment, the chances of finding work among tho...Read more...

Jonathan Wadsworth

30 November 2020

Blog
VoxEU:
Work, care, and gender across UK lockdowns

A growing body of research is making clear the unequal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic across gender. This column explores what the likely implications of a second lockdown in the UK are for gender equality at work and i...Read more...

Claudia Hupkau and Barbara Petrongolo

23 November 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
How leading economists view antitrust in the digital economy

US and European experts discuss internet giants, and Google's dominance of search and operating practices, writes Romesh Vaitilingam...Read more...

Romesh Vaitilingam

18 November 2020

Blog
State of Working Britain Blog:
1 Million Missing Immigrants (And 1.2 Million More UK-Born)

Jonathan Wadsworth examines the Labour Force Survey, highlighting the strange case of a rapid fall of around 750,000 in the immigrant population of working age over the last year contained in the latest ONS labour market...Read more...

Jonathan Wadsworth

11 November 2020

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
How lockdowns have reversed traditional gender roles in some UK households and further entrenched them in others

Claudia Hupkau and Barbara Petrongolo discuss what the likely implications of a second lockdown are for gender equality at work and in the home....Read more...

Claudia Hupkau and Barbara Petrongolo

10 November 2020

Blog
State of Working Britain Blog:
Who's being made redundant during COVID? Who is staying at work. And is it any different from usual?

Following his previous blog post looking at trends in redundancies over the COVID period relative to previous downturns, Jonathan Wadsworth looks to understand who is being laid off and whether this is any different from...Read more...

Jonathan Wadsworth

9 November 2020

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Schools and England's second lockdown: further closures would have adverse effects on children and a wider effect on family life

Sandra McNally and Jo Blanden explain how school closures have negative effects on both children and parents, hindering educational outcomes, mental health, work, and general resilience....Read more...

Jo Blanden and Sandra McNally

5 November 2020

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
COVID-19 and social mobility: the public support key policies that will help limit widening inequalities in employment and education

Lee Elliot Major, Andrew Eyles, and Stephen Machin present new data around public support behind the implementation of job guarantees, the reform of A-level and GCSE exams in 2021, and the abolition of predicted grades f...Read more...

Lee Elliot Major, Andrew Eyles and Stephen Machin

4 November 2020

Blog
State of Working Britain Blog:
Redundancies and the labour market under Covid. Has furlough helped? And other related things you may have missed

Redundancies are often seen as commensurate with unemployment - but not always. In this blog post, Jonathan Wadsworth analyses the links between the UK's furlough scheme and redundancies....Read more...

Jonathan Wadsworth

2 November 2020

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
The government's furlough scheme has almost certainly helped prevent a large rise in unemployment over COVID-19 (so far)

Jonathan Wadsworth explains why the furlough scheme seems to have done its job in preventing mass layoffs, as well as other reasons why the total entering unemployment is still much lower than in the 2008-2011 downturn....Read more...

Jonathan Wadsworth

1 November 2020

Blog
VoxEU:
The impact of public employment: evidence from West Germany's post-war capital Bonn

Raising the level of public employment is a frequently used policy instrument to support economically lagging regions. This column evaluates the impact of changes in public employment on private sector activity using the...Read more...

Sascha O. Becker, Stephan Heblich and Daniel M. Sturm

1 November 2020

Blog
CVER blogs:
Stark contrast between pre- and post-16 provision in UTCs

At a time when Prime Minister Boris Johnson has put the government’s skills policy agenda in the spotlight, Guglielmo Ventura presents findings from his research seeking to understand whether UTCs were successful at br...Read more...

Guglielmo Ventura

29 October 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
The use of designer reputation to build tall in London

Height exemptions are made easier when a world-famous architect is involved, but the process carries hidden costs, writes Paul Cheshire....Read more...

Paul Cheshire

27 October 2020

Blog
LSE American Politics and Policy Blog:
Enslavers dominated Southern politics long after the Civil War ended

Before the Civil War, the politics and economy of the Southern US were dominated by those who practiced immoral - but at the time legally permissible - forced enslavement. In new research, Luna Bellani, Anselm Hager, and...Read more...

Luna Bellani, Anselm Hager and Stephan Maurer

23 October 2020

Blog
LSE Brexit:
The cost of Brexit is likely to be more than double that of COVID - it must be delayed

Whether we face Hard Brexit or No Deal, the long-run costs to the economy are likely to be more than twice that of COVID-19 - at least 2,000 GBP per person, warns John Van Reenen (LSE). He advocates delaying the exit fr...Read more...

John Van Reenen

22 October 2020

Blog
State of Working Britain Blog:
Two Things About Ethnicity Pay Gaps that May Have Passed You By

Last week the ONS published a study setting out recent trends in ethnicity pay gaps. Despite lots of caveats in the article, many papers duly reported the end of pay gaps by ethnicity. There are reasons to think however...Read more...

Jonathan Wadsworth

20 October 2020

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Monetary financing: why the government should not be worrying about the deficit

Alan Manning writes that government should stop worrying about the current deficit, financing it less by issuing debt though being clear that this is a temporary policy for exceptional circumstances. He explains how mone...Read more...

Alan Manning

20 October 2020

Blog
LSE Covid-19 blog:
How zero-carbon investments can allay the coming jobs crisis

Unemployment is going up and will rise further. In an extract from a new LSE Centre for Economic Performance report, Nicholas Stern (LSE) sets out how investment in zero-carbon goods and services can create jobs and rede...Read more...

Nicholas Stern

19 October 2020

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Transport infrastructure expenditure: while there is no strong evidence of significant regional differences, the data available is problematic

The UK government uses a Value for Money framework to help allocate infrastructure expenditure. At the core of this is a benefit-to-cost ratio (BCR), calculated using a set of established monetised impacts and costs. Yet...Read more...

Henry G. Overman

8 October 2020

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
Planning for the Future: some solutions for our housing crisis at last?

The white paper, Planning for the future, published in early August 2020 represents the first serious attempt to reform our dysfunctional land use planning system since its inception. Although the Barker report’s diagnos...Read more...

Paul Cheshire

1 October 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
COVID has forced many firms to innovate, with possible lasting impacts

A survey reveals greater UK innovation rates than what we might have expected in the absence of a pandemic, write Capucine Riom and Anna Valero....Read more...

Capucine Riom and Anna Valero

1 October 2020

Blog
LSE Blogs:
Denied jobs and schooling, 'Generation COVID' faces a struggle to catch up

More than a tenth of young people have lost their jobs during the pandemic, and only 38% of pupils were getting the equivalent of a full day's schooling in lockdown. Lee Elliot Major (University of Exeter), Andrew Eyles ...Read more...

Lee Elliot Major, Andrew Eyles and Stephen Machin

1 October 2020

Blog
LSE Covid-19 blog:
How do globalisation and pandemics interact? Surprising insights from a new model

Pandemics are only possible because of international travel. But – perhaps surprisingly – in the absence of social distancing a more globalised country will not necessarily suffer a worse outbreak. Pol Antràs (Harvard), ...Read more...

Pol Antràs, Stephen J. Redding and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg

30 September 2020

Blog
What works well centre for local economic growth:
Benefits, costs, and 'levelling up'

Henry Overman examines how transport infrastructure can play an important role in the economic performance of national and local economies. Reducing transport costs for businesses and commuters, improves access to market...Read more...

Henry G. Overman

25 September 2020

Blog
LSE blogs:
A no-deal Brexit may still be more costly than COVID-19

Conventional wisdom holds that the impact of COVID-19 on the UK economy dwarfs the potential consequences of Brexit. This has led some Brexiteers to argue there is nothing to fear about a no-deal Brexit. Yet data show th...Read more...

Thomas Sampson

24 September 2020

Blog
The BMJ Opinion:
Taking a wellbeing-years approach to policy choice

Every day, policy makers have to decide whether a policy is desirable. They do so by examining its impact on a whole range of outcomes. But the problem is how to aggregate these disparate outcomes against issues such as ...Read more...

Andrew E. Clark, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Christian Krekel, Richard Layard and Gus O'Donnell

24 September 2020

Blog
Economics Observatory:
Will coronavirus cause a big city exodus?

Big cities thrive because of the economic and social benefits of proximity - but proximity also helps to spread Covid-19. Does this mean an end to the big city revival of recent years? Much will depend on how quickly we ...Read more...

Matthew Clancy, Diane Coyle, Jonathan Dingel, Elena Magrini, Philip McCann, Max Nathan, Henry Overman and Helen Simpson

22 September 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Productivity growth in one country affects the relative income and welfare of its trade partners

One of the most dramatic changes in the world economy over the past half century has been the emergence of China as a major force in world trade. A central question in international economics is the implications of such ...Read more...

Benny Kleinman, Ernest Liu and Stephen J. Redding

15 September 2020

Blog
LSE blogs:
City of dreams no more: COVID-19 in urban India

COVID-19 has decimated livelihoods in urban India and created a new underclass of workers who are being pushed into poverty. Shania Bhalotia, Swati Dhingra and Fjolla Kondirolli (LSE) say a national work guarantee is nee...Read more...

Shania Bhalotia, Swati Dhingra and Fjolla Kondirolli

11 September 2020

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
UK Labour Market Under COVID Part 3: Layoffs, Hiring & Wages

Recessions, usually signify a rise in layoffs. Even the last recession, which was accompanied by much more wage moderation than previous ones, generated a significant rise in redundancies. This time it is a little differ...Read more...

Jonathan Wadsworth

4 September 2020

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
What’s Happening to the UK Labour Market under COVID-19? Looking for signs of excess and what it shows (so far). Part 1

Six months into the worst pandemic of the modern era, the worst recession of the modern era and yet and yet .... the labour market is proving to be remarkably resilient (so far) – at least along the dimensions normally ...Read more...

Jonathan Wadsworth

4 September 2020

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
What's Happening to the Labour Market under COVID-19? Part 2

So if unemployment, employment or more marginal types of working appear little changed under COVID, things are different from normal if we look elsewhere. Figure 1 shows the percentage of workers who say they had a job b...Read more...

Jonathan Wadsworth

4 September 2020

Blog
LSE Consulting:
Vulnerabilities of Supply Chains Post-Brexit

Nikhil Datta, Jan Bakker, Elitsa Garnizova & Josh De-Lyon show how consumers in the UK are highly dependent on products originating in the EU, where 40 percent of all consumption of food products in the UK comes from EU ...Read more...

Jan David Bakker, Nikhil Datta, Josh De Lyon and Elitsa Garnizova

1 September 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Why we need to do something about the monopsony power of employers

Monopsony decreases worker mobility, keeping wages lower than they would be in a competitive market, writes Alan Manning...Read more...

Alan Manning

26 August 2020

Blog
LSE Covid-19 blog:
COVID-19: cities get hit first, but do not necessarily get hit harder

Is there a link between population density and COVID-19 spread and severity in the United States? Felipe Carozzi, Sandro Provenzano and Sefi Roth (Centre for Economic Performance, LSE) found denser locations were more li...Read more...

Felipe Carozzi, Sandro Provenzano and Sefi Roth

19 August 2020

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
The COVID Generation social mobility test: how to level up an even more unequal playing field created by the pandemic

Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin explain just how badly those aged under 25 appear to be faring in the labour market. They outline five proposals through which the government can help address both the classroom and wo...Read more...

Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin

13 August 2020

Blog
LSE US Centre:
How economists view the US debate on extending jobless benefits

Experts discuss the trade-offs between work incentives and income support; whether top-ups should be reduced, and how economics and public health might determine federal contribution levels, writes Romesh Vaitilingam....Read more...

Romesh Vaitilingam

8 August 2020

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
The UK labour market and COVID-19: how to measure excess, where to look for it, and what it shows

Think the outlook for the UK labour market in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic looks bad? But just how bad? And along which dimensions? Jonathan Wadsworth answers these questions. He concludes that the crisis was mar...Read more...

Jonathan Wadsworth

28 July 2020

Blog
LSE Covid-19 blog:
Free media help combat the spread of COVID-19

What is the best response to combat the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic? Although some success stories and key lessons are emerging (early response, large-scale testing, effective containment), countries have adopted a s...Read more...

Timothy Besley and Sacha Dray

22 July 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Firms closer to universities tend to have better management practices

Management matters for explaining differentials in productivity between and within countries and sectors. Across countries, management practices – as measured in the World Management Survey (WMS) – explain on average aro...Read more...

Andy Feng and Anna Valero

20 July 2020

Blog
LSE Covid-19 blog:
How to stop UK’s declining social mobility amid COVID-19

COVID-19 is increasing the divide in life chances between rich and poor. Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin (LSE) propose urgent actions to tackle economic and educational inequalities in Britain. Social distancing meas...Read more...

Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin

17 July 2020

Blog
LSE Covid-19 blog:
An LSE action plan for a strong and sustainable recovery

What does ‘building back better’ actually mean? Nicholas Stern, Sam Unsworth, Anna Valero, Dimitri Zenghelis, James Rydge and Nick Robins (LSE) set out the actions the government needs to take to deliver a sustainable re...Read more...

Nick Robins, James Rydge, Nicholas Stern, Sam Unsworth, Anna Valero and Dimitri Zenghelis

8 July 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
UK economic problems: diagnosing is easier than coming up with solutions

With Boris Johnson’s launch of his “New Deal” and Michael Gove’s speech on “the privilege of public service”, the government has made clear its intention to press ahead with the domestic agenda of “levelling-up” and refo...Read more...

Alan Manning

8 July 2020

Blog
LSE Covid-19 blog:
We need more progressive taxation, and a wealth tax, to pay for the COVID-19 rescue packages

The cost of COVID-19 rescue packages will likely be partly financed by increased inflation, which will disproportionally affect less-affluent people and workers, including frontline NHS staff. Pawel Bukowski (LSE) and Wo...Read more...

Pawel Bukowski and Wojciech Paczos

7 July 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Dream jobs: managers in internationally active firms have higher lifetime wages

People at managerial level in international companies accumulate strong experience that is useful also in other firms, write Giordano Mion, Luca David Opromolla, and Gianmarco Ottaviano....Read more...

Giordano Mion, Luca David Opromolla and Gianmarco Ottaviano

5 July 2020

Blog
LSE Covid-19 blog:
Home is not a safe place for everyone: domestic abuse between partners increased during lockdown

What has happened to the prevalence and nature of domestic abuse during lockdown? Crime economists Ria Ivandic and Tom Kirchmaier collaborated with the Strategic Insights Unit (SIU), from the Metropolitan Police, to answ...Read more...

Ria Ivandic and Tom Kirchmaier

30 June 2020

Blog
CVER Blog:
What you study vs where you study: how FE choices affect earnings and academic achievement

Read more...

Esteban Aucejo, Claudia Hupkau and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela

25 June 2020

Blog
LSE Covid-19 blog:
Parts of the economy less hit by the pandemic are exposed to bigger negative impacts from Brexit

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK has been continuing its preparations to leave the EU by the end of 2020. COVID-19 has had a huge negative impact on the UK economy and Brexit will present another profound change in ...Read more...

Josh De Lyon and Swati Dhingra

23 June 2020

Blog
LSE Covid-19 blog:
Ralf Martin & John van Reenen | The case for a COVID-19 carbon tax

Ralf Martin and John Van Reenen (LSE) explain how a carbon tax could both help pay for the enormous costs of the pandemic and encourage ‘clean’ investment. Crucially, it should be levied in a few years’ time, when the UK...Read more...

Ralf Martin and John Van Reenen

2 June 2020

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
No Recourse to Public Funds: More than a quick fix needed for immigration rules

The Prime Minister recently appeared surprised to hear that most non-EEA migrants with temporary leave to remain in the UK are not eligible to claim benefits, and hinted at a review in the light of COVID-19. Alan Manning...Read more...

Alan Manning

2 June 2020

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Abolishing the NHS surcharge for health and care workers is not as generous as it sounds – a pay rise is needed

The government was recently been forced to re-think its plans to continue charging workers in health and social care for using the NHS. But how many pay the surcharge and how much would it cost to abolish it? In answerin...Read more...

Alan Manning

29 May 2020

Blog
LSE Brexit:
EU trade is just as important to the UK as it was in 2016. Why?

Has EU trade become less important to the UK since the referendum? Thomas Sampson (LSE) finds it has not. He discusses why this might be the case and whether COVID-19 could be the trigger for more UK firms to permanently...Read more...

Thomas Sampson

28 May 2020

Blog
Economics Observatory:
Which firms and industries have been most affected by Covid-19?

Almost all UK businesses have been badly affected by the spread of Covid-19, but some industries have been hit harder than others. Financial market data and surveys of firms themselves provide insights into the scale of ...Read more...

Nick Bloom, Rachel Griffith, Peter Levell, Paul Mizen, Pawel Smietanka, Rebekah Stroud and Gregory Thwaites

28 May 2020

Blog
LSE Covid-19 blog:
How a job guarantee scheme can avoid the slide into long-term unemployment

Even if COVID-19 infection rates dwindle, it is now clear that the economy is unlikely to bounce back quickly. This raises the spectre of long-term unemployment. Richard Layard (LSE) explains how the government could dra...Read more...

Richard Layard

21 May 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
How will Covid-19 shape the future economic role of the British state?

When the pandemic has passed into history, what will be its implications for the role of the state in our economy? Some think it will (or should be) the replacement of one -ism with another. But to see the issues we face...Read more...

Alan Manning

20 May 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Building back better: policies for a strong and sustainable recovery

The Covid-19 crisis is already inflicting serious damage on both the UK and the global economy. This raises questions on the appropriate policies for a strong and sustainable recovery, contributing to global efforts to a...Read more...

Sam Unsworth and Anna Valero

18 May 2020

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
COVID-19 and educational losses: The case for sending the youngest back to school

Jo Blanden and Birgitta Rabe discuss the decision to send the youngest students back to school this summer. They explain why doing so may be important for children’s education and wellbeing, as long as health risks can b...Read more...

Jo Blanden and Birgitta Rabe

15 May 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
How is Covid-19 affecting businesses in the UK?

The Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown have highlighted the need for real-time data to understand the spread of the disease, identify vulnerable groups and design policies to mitigate the health and economic fallout of the c...Read more...

Josh De Lyon and Swati Dhingra

7 May 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
The future of apprenticeships is in the balance

The unprecedented economic upheaval brought by the Covid-19 pandemic raises several concerns for the functioning of the English apprenticeship system, particularly in the medium-term as economic and social activity resum...Read more...

Guglielmo Ventura

2 May 2020

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
COVID-19 and Higher Education: some of the effects on students and institutions and how to alleviate them

Monica Langella discusses some potential negative effects of the pandemic on higher education, particularly those pertaining to online assessment, university offers, and labour market outcomes. She offers evidence-based ...Read more...

Monica Langella

30 April 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Covid-19 and the international trade downturn: lessons from 2008

The current Covid-19 outbreak is raising a number of growing concerns about the UK economy and its capacity to cope with the current situation and recover in the near future. One particular area of concern, in the UK and...Read more...

Giordano Mion

29 April 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Covid-19 is increasing the divide in life chances between rich and poor

Covid-19 is increasing the divide in life chances between rich and poor Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin propose reforms and urgent actions to tackle economic and educational inequalities in the UK....Read more...

Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin

24 April 2020

Blog
VoxEU:
How the UK government should respond to the unequal local economic impacts of COVID-19

The economic crisis caused by COVID-19 will play out unequally across areas. Unfortunately, the unusual nature of this crisis makes its local impacts hard to predict. This complicates attempts to formulate appropriate ar...Read more...

Henry G. Overman

22 April 2020

Blog
VoxEU:
COVID-19 and gender gaps: Latest evidence and lessons from the UK

The social distancing and lockdowns associated with the COVID-19 crisis has hit service sectors with frequent interactions between consumers and providers which cannot be done from home. At the same time, it has added ed...Read more...

Claudia Hupkau and Barbara Petrongolo

22 April 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
The Covid-19 recession is creating a crisis of inequality

Earnings may be affected differently by age, gender, and firm size, with large cuts for the young in small firms, write Brian Bell, Nick Bloom, Jack Blundell, and Luigi Pistaferri...Read more...

Brian Bell, Nicholas Bloom and Jack Blundell

18 April 2020

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
COVID-19: Crashing the Economy so what will it do for the Housing Market?

To speculate usefully about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Britain’s housing markets one needs a clear analytical understanding of how our housing markets work and what forces cause them to change. Given the e...Read more...

Paul Cheshire and Christian Hilber

17 April 2020

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
COVID-19 and wages: prepare for large cuts if you are younger and work in a small firm

Brian Bell, Nick Bloom, Jack Blundell, and Luigi Pistaferri estimate how the ongoing pandemic may impact earnings by age group, gender, and firm size. The data suggests that young men working in small firms could see ear...Read more...

Brian Bell, Nick Bloom, Jack Blundell and Luigi Pistaferri

8 April 2020

Blog
VoxEU:
Prepare for large wage cuts if you are younger and work in a small firm

The COVID-19 pandemic is turning into a global recession - probably the biggest drop in economic activity since the Great Depression of the 1930s. This column uses over 3 million earnings observations drawn from more tha...Read more...

Brian Bell, Nicholas Bloom, Jack Blundell and Luigi Pistaferri

6 April 2020

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
COVID-19 and housing: while prices may fall, homes will remain unaffordable

Discussing the potential effects of COVID-19 on housing, Paul Cheshire and Christian Hilber write that real house prices and rents may initially fall. Yet housing will remain unaffordable for the young and those on lower...Read more...

Paul Cheshire and Christian Hilber

6 April 2020

Blog
CVER Blog:
Training grants: a useful policy to address skills and productivity gaps?

As work changes, firm-provided training may become more relevant for good economic and social outcomes. However, so far there is little or no causal evidence about the effects of training on firms. Pedro Martins looks at...Read more...

Pedro Martins

13 March 2020

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Budget 2020: will it move the economy onto a sustainable and inclusive growth path?

The UK's challenges around productivity, regional disparities and the transition to net zero emissions are complex and interconnected, made even more so by the coronavirus outbreak and Brexit. Anna Valero argues that whi...Read more...

Anna Valero

12 March 2020

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Budget 2020: a bold response to coronavirus, but more must be done if it becomes widespread in the UK

While the 2020 Budget offers an overall adequate response to the challenges currently posed by coronavirus, there are three issues that need to be addressed further, especially as the outbreak becomes more widespread, wr...Read more...

Thomas Sampson

12 March 2020

Blog
VoxEU:
Measuring the impact of malfunctioning credit markets on productivity

Since the Global Crisis, there has been a renewed awareness of how frictions in credit markets can damage economic efficiency due to a higher cost of capital and/or capital being misallocated away from its most productiv...Read more...

Timothy Besley, Isabelle Roland and John Van Reenen

9 March 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Does more competition spur innovation or discourage it?

Less-productive firms that are family owned and managed see the greatest improvement in productivity, write Cheng Chen and Claudia Steinwender....Read more...

Cheng Chen and Claudia Steinwender

6 March 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
We can increase happiness through public policy - and in our jobs and private lives too

As research shows us what makes us happy, a world happiness movement is being born, write Richard Layard and George Ward....Read more...

Richard Layard and George Ward

1 March 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Covid-19: We shouldn't give priority to sustaining the GDP over the wellbeing of the people

If we handle the coronavirus crisis right, we can come out of it better than we went into it, says Richard Layard...Read more...

Richard Layard

1 March 2020

Blog
UK in a Changing Europe:
New chancellor, new challenge: evaluating the coronavirus budget

Thomas Sampson examines the first UK budget to balance the shocks of Covid-19 and Brexit....Read more...

Thomas Sampson

1 March 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Technology can benefit a few superstar workers, at the expense of everyone else

The rollout of television provides a natural experiment, creating an opportunity to isolate the impact of a technical disruption on the labour market, writes Felix Koenig....Read more...

Felix Koenig

29 February 2020

Blog
LSE News:
Artificial intelligence could help protect victims of domestic violence

Ria Ivandic finds in the United States, roughly one in four women experience serious intimate partner violence over their lifetimes...Read more...

Ria Ivandic

27 February 2020

Blog
LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:
The implications of Brexit for the UK economy

The United Kingdom has now formally left the European Union, but what does the future hold for the British economy? Following a recent event at LSE, Gerard Lyons, Vicky Pryce and John Van Reenen took questions from LSE s...Read more...

Gerard Lyons, Vicky Pryce and John Van Reenen

4 February 2020

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Public investment in defence research can increase business innovation

That doesn't mean that defence R&D is the most efficient way to stimulate private sector innovation and productivity, write Enrico Moretti, Claudia Steinwender and John van Reenen....Read more...

Enrico Moretti, Claudia Steinwender and John Van Reenen

17 January 2020

Blog
BSI Economics:
Elections britanniques : quels enjeux pour le Brexit ? (Policy Brief)

Utilité de l’article : A l’approche des élections britanniques, l’incertitude quant à la tournure que prendra le Brexit est toujours importante. Cet article expose les scénarios possibles à ce jour ainsi que leurs conséq...Read more...

Elsa Leromain

10 December 2019

Blog
LSE Brexit:
Immigration is no longer the most pressing concern among the electorate

Immigration is no longer the most pressing concern among the electorate going into this election that it was prior to the Brexit referendum, writes Jonathan Wadsworth (LSE). More than three years on, concerns about Europ...Read more...

Jonathan Wadsworth

3 December 2019

Blog
LSE Brexit:
Three years on: the UK is paying a high economic price for its decision to leave the EU

How has the Leave vote affected the UK economy, ask Swati Dhingra and Thomas Sampson (LSE) in this second of two blogs based on the CEP Election Analysis briefing on Brexit. It summarizes CEP research on how the referend...Read more...

Swati Dhingra and Thomas Sampson

2 December 2019

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
Housing: 'no shortage' - is it nonsense?

Paul Cheshire questions arguments that Britain is not suffering from a housing shortage, pointing out errors in common understanding....Read more...

Paul Cheshire

1 December 2019

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Brexit will leave the UK worse off economically in all scenarios

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...Read more...

Swati Dhingra and Thomas Sampson

30 November 2019

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
The UK’s housing crisis: what should the next government do?

Since 2015, neither the government nor any opposition party has had any effective policy to tackle our housing crisis symbolised most starkly by Starter Homes. To the extent there has been action, it is largely ineffecti...Read more...

Paul Cheshire and Christian Hilber

29 November 2019

Blog
LSE Brexit:
Economic consequences of Brexit are overwhelmingly negative

The economic consequences of Brexit are overwhelmingly negative, estimate Swati Dhingra and Thomas Sampson (LSE). The more the UK distances itself from the EU’s economic institutions and policies, the greater will be the...Read more...

Swati Dhingra and Thomas Sampson

26 November 2019

Blog
LSE Business Review:
John Van Reenen: ‘A lot of promises are just smoke and mirrors’

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 U...Read more...

John Van Reenen

25 November 2019

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Economic insecurity breeds support for the right

Economic insecurity breeds support for the right 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 Rece...Read more...

Walter Bossert, Andrew E. Clark, Conchita D'Ambrosio and Anthony Lepinteur

23 November 2019

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Eurosceptic votes are less likely when EU interventions visibly boost local job markets

Eurosceptic votes are less likely when EU interventions visibly boost local job markets Anti-systemic political movements have emerged in recent years in a large number of countries across the globe. These parties genera...Read more...

Riccardo Crescenzi, Marco Di Cataldo and Mara Giua

16 November 2019

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Give us the right to choose

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 t...Read more...

John Van Reenen

18 October 2019

Blog
LSE Business Review:
When free trade lands on the banking desk

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 ...Read more...

Fadi Hassan

15 October 2019

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Measuring the effect of innovation on productivity inside firms

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 improvin...Read more...

Max Nathan and Anna Rosso

2 October 2019

Blog
VOX:
New dawn fades: The post-referendum rise in import costs has hurt UK workers

Some commentators argue that globalisation is systematically connected to the real-wage and productivity stagnation seen across the developed world. This column analyses the relationship between international trade and w...Read more...

Rui Costa, Swati Dhingra and Stephen Machin

1 October 2019

Blog
CVER Blog:
Is there a socio-economic gap in students’ academic match?

Young people from less well-off backgrounds are more likely to pursue lower ranked upper-secondary qualifications than their prior attainment would suggest that they can achieve. Recent research from Konstantina Maragko...Read more...

Konstantina Maragkou

27 September 2019

Blog
LSE Review of Books:
Book Review: Social Mobility and its Enemies by Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin

In Social Mobility and its Enemies, Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin offer a thought-provoking assessment of the state of social mobility in Britain. In the context of much social and political change and rising level...Read more...

Ross Goldstone

25 September 2019

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
Dirty Density: Air Quality and the Density of American Cities

Read more...

Felipe Carozzi

29 August 2019

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Why No-Deal Brexit is a battle for the soul of our nation

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 governme...Read more...

John Van Reenen

26 August 2019

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Compact cities have many advantages – clean air isn’t one of them

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 i...Read more...

Felipe Carozzi and Sefi Roth

22 August 2019

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Is the big-box store killing Main Street?

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-existin...Read more...

Maria Sánchez-Vidal

21 August 2019

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Trade with China benefited US consumers

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...Read more...

Xavier Jaravel and Erick Sager

20 August 2019

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
Why banning the construction of second homes in St. Ives and elsewhere has been a bad idea and what to do instead

Read more...

Stephen Gibbons

19 August 2019

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Residential mobility in the UK: how distance and local economic conditions drive residential choices

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...

Monica Langella and Alan Manning

18 August 2019

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Can economic incentives promote a more equal gender division of house chores?

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...Read more...

Andrea Ichino, Martin Olsson, Barbara Petrongolo and Peter Skogman Thoursie

29 July 2019

Blog
LSE Business Review:
How the Panama Canal reshaped the economic geography of the United States

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 o...Read more...

Stephan Maurer and Ferdinand Rauch

27 July 2019

Blog
LSE Business Review:
The 2018 trade war: consumers are paying a high price

Over the course of 2018, the Trump administration imposed import tariffs on approximately $283 billion of US imports, with rates ranging between 10 and 50 per cent. In response, US trading partners, especially China, ret...Read more...

Mary Amiti, Stephen J. Redding and David E. Weinstein

24 July 2019

Blog
CVER Blog:
Changing Aspirations and Outcomes in Post-16 Education

In this latest blog post, Steven McIntosh of University of Sheffield discusses CVER contributions to the recent Augar Review of Post-18 Education, and the findings that came out of that research. CVER have been contribut...Read more...

Steven McIntosh

25 June 2019

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Amplifying Islamophobic hate crime: UK media in the wake of terror attacks

Ria Ivandic,Tom Kirchmaier, and Stephen Machin study the empirical connections between local anti-Muslim hate crimes and international jihadi terror attacks. They find that local Muslim populations face a media-magnified...Read more...

Ria Ivandic, Tom Kirchmaier and Stephen Machin

8 May 2019

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Childhood circumstances and young adult outcomes: the role of parental financial problems

Is there a relationship between childhood circumstances and outcomes later on in life? Andrew E. Clark, Conchita D’Ambrosio, and Marta Barazzetta consider the cognitive and non-cognitive consequences on young adults who ...Read more...

Marta Barazzetta, Andrew E. Clark and Conchita D'Ambrosio

29 April 2019

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
Financial innovation in mortgage products spurred the rapid increase in credit and house price growth during the last housing boom

Read more...

Stephen Gibbons

26 April 2019

Blog
CVER Blog:
The Changing Demand for Skills in the UK

In this latest blog post, Andy Dickerson and Damon Morris changes in skill utilisation and returns to skills over time in the UK. ‘Skills’ have long been a major policy priority, yet they are hard to measure. Skills...Read more...

Andy Dickerson and Damon Morris

25 April 2019

Blog
CVER Blog:
Family Matters: how early disadvantage impacts employment outcomes of young people

Dr Stefan Speckesser, Dr Matthew Bursnall and Jamie Moore share the findings of a new report. A new NIESR and Impetus report on young people Not In Education, Employment and Training (NEET) reveals that young people wit...Read more...

Matt Bursnall, Jamie Moore and Stefan Speckesser

25 April 2019

Blog
CVER Blog:
Higher vocational education: An alternative to degrees?

A detailed picture of earnings effects of university degrees is emerging, but not much is known about the benefits of higher vocational education. A recent report by the IFS provides evidence on the extensive earnings b...Read more...

Hector Espinoza and Stefan Speckesser

2 April 2019

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
Valuing the environmental benefits of canals using house prices

Read more...

Stephen Gibbons

2 April 2019

Blog
CVER Blog:
Devolution at any cost?

Since the introduction of the apprenticeships levy in April 2017, local leaders up and down the country have relentlessly called for it to be devolved. The rationale is that local leaders know better than the central gov...Read more...

Chiara Cavaglia, Sandra McNally and Henry G. Overman

6 March 2019

Blog
CVER Blog:
High performing but less academic students need more ways to get on

Dr Stefan Speckesser of NIESR and CVER discusses a comparison study of 16 to 18-year-old students following A-Level or vocational and technical routes. It shows us that Non-A-level students need more options for progress...Read more...

Stefan Speckesser

7 February 2019

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
Measure for Measure: Has the Government Already Met its Net Immigration Target Without Noticing?

Read more...

Jonathan Wadsworth

24 January 2019

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
Do foreign migrants ‘grease the wheels’ of the labour market?

Read more...

Henry Overman

11 December 2018

Blog
CVER Blog:
New Causal Evidence Suggests Technical Education Positively Impacts Students

Shaun M. Dougherty of Peabody College, Vanderbilt University, on the positive effects of the US Career and Technical Education (CTE) system. Vocational education and training (VET) has a long history in Britain and Eur...Read more...

Shaun M. Dougherty

7 December 2018

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
The Economic Impacts of Constraining Second Home Investments

Read more...

Henry Overman

19 November 2018

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
Measuring Urban Economic Density

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Henry Overman

13 November 2018

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
The Making of Modern London

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Henry Overman

30 October 2018

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
How much will households pay to avoid council tax?

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Henry Overman

15 October 2018

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
Incubators, accelerators and local economic development

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Max Nathan

1 October 2018

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
There is a housing crisis: there are not enough houses being built and they are becoming ever less affordable; and they are getting smaller…

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Henry Overman

24 September 2018

Blog
CVER Blog:
Does starting an apprenticeship boost young people’s earnings?

Apprenticeships feature in the vocational education systems of many countries, although their popularity varies widely. They are especially prevalent in countries like Austria, Germany and Switzerland and virtually absen...Read more...

Chiara Cavaglia, Sandra McNally and Guglielmo Ventura

7 September 2018

Blog
CVER Blog:
Do older apprentices get the same earnings boost as younger ones?

There has been a huge increase in the number of people over the age of 25 who are undertaking apprenticeships. Prior to 2007, there were essentially no apprentices in this age group in England; in 2016/17, nearly half of...Read more...

Steven McIntosh and Damon Morris

7 September 2018

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
The Beeching Axe: the consequences of massive rail disinvestment

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Stephen Gibbons

7 August 2018

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
Turning Brownfields Around: the Role of Demand in Land Re-Development

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Felipe Carozzi

11 July 2018

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
Did the Blitz enhance London’s economy?

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Stephen Gibbons

14 June 2018

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
Inclusive Growth in cities: Good intentions, difficult policy

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Neil Lee

12 June 2018

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
The ‘Bedroom Tax’: How did families react? Did the policy achieve its objectives?

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Stephen Gibbons

16 May 2018

Blog
ESRC blog:
Becoming a Research Institute: the Centre for Economic Performance

by Stephen Machin As Director of the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) at LSE, I am delighted that the Centre has been named as one of the two inaugural ESRC Research Institutes. This is testament to the achievements...Read more...

Stephen Machin

10 May 2018

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
Does gentrification displace low-income renters in Britain? In short: Yes!

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Stephen Gibbons

3 May 2018

Blog
CVER Blog:
Missing the mark at GCSE English: the costly consequences of just failing to get a grade C

School students who narrowly fail to achieve a grade C in their GCSE English exam pay a high price, according to new research by Stephen Machin, Sandra McNally and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela. Getting above or failing to re...Read more...

Stephen Machin, Sandra McNally and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela

13 April 2018

Blog
CVER Blog:
Choosing the best counterfactual for assessing the returns to qualifications

Sophie Hedges of London Economics summarises a new paper which finds that, for both males and females, non-achievers are generally closer in their observable characteristics to the achievers, than are individuals who onl...Read more...

Sophie Hedges

11 April 2018

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
Housing: the happy self-delusion of ‘no shortage’

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Paul Cheshire

29 March 2018

Blog
CVER Blog:
Apprenticeships are changing: The Levy a year in

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Matt Bursnall and Stefan Speckesser

28 March 2018

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
Who benefits from neighbourhoods designated as conservation areas?

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Stephen Gibbons

20 March 2018

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
Empty homes, longer commutes: the unintended consequences of more restrictive local planning

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Paul Cheshire, Christian Hilber and Hans R. A. Koster

12 March 2018

Blog
CVER Blog:
Do BTEC qualifications pay?

London Economics' Pietro Patrignani with a closer look at BTEC qualifications. BTEC qualifications are career-based qualifications and can be taken at different levels of the Regulated Qualification Framework (RQF) betw...Read more...

Pietro Patrignani

26 February 2018

Blog
CVER Blog:
Which skill signals matter truly in getting a job?

Lisa Simon from the ifo Center for the Economics of Education on the impact of skill signals on hiring decisions Individuals make costly investments (in terms of time, effort or money) to signal skills to potential emplo...Read more...

Lisa Simon

2 February 2018

Blog
CVER Blog:
How much do college principals matter?

CVER's Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela, along with Camille Terrier and Clémentine Van Effenterre have been looking at evidence from Further Education Colleges in England, and ask How much do college principals matter? The past ...Read more...

Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela, Camille Terrier and Clémentine Van Effenterre

19 December 2017

Blog
CVER Blog:
Apprenticeship and automotive skills: the UK, Germany and Spain compared

CVER's Hilary Steedman and colleagues have been looking at training in one area of the automotive sector Car Service is central to the supply chain of the wider automotive sector, identified as a leading performer in t...Read more...

Hilary Steedman

5 December 2017

Blog
CVER Blog:
Do apprenticeships pay?

The government aims to massively increase the number of apprenticeships and to make this a more important part of the post-16 educational landscape. In our research - published today by the Sutton Trust - we investigate ...Read more...

Chiara Cavaglia, Sandra McNally and Guglielmo Ventura

30 November 2017

Blog
CVER Blog:
The Payoff to Vocational Qualifications: Reconciling Estimates from Survey and Administrative Data

Steve McIntosh and colleagues from the University of Sheffield and London Economics look at what different types of data can tell us about the payoff to vocational qualifications. Researchers looking to estimate the pay...Read more...

Steven McIntosh

24 November 2017

Blog
CVER Blog:
Do secondary school peers influence educational decisions?

Sophie Hedges from London Economics, together with NIESR's Stefan Speckesser, has been looking at how students make choices about their education after GCSEs. Following the increase in the education participation age, i...Read more...

Sophie Hedges and Stefan Speckesser

13 November 2017

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
Distributive Politics Inside the City?

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Felipe Carozzi

19 October 2017

Blog
CVER Blog:
Investment in adult skills in decreasing in the UK – here’s why we should be worried

NIESR's Matt Bursnall and Stefan Speckesser ask are we right to be concerned about access to skills in the UK? Recently, the FT showed that contrary to popular belief the most troubling issue for SMEs in Europe is not ac...Read more...

Matt Bursnall and Stefan Speckesser

11 October 2017

Blog
CVER Blog:
What are the labour market outcomes associated with vocational education and training?

Pietro Patrignani is a Senior Economic Consultant at London Economics working on CVER projects. In this blog he looks at the outcomes for those on vocational paths using newly matched data. For the first time, the match...Read more...

Pietro Patrignani

9 October 2017

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Where industry is strong and where it’s weak – key facts of UK business geography

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 industry is not nearly as...Read more...

Sandra Bernick, Richard Davies and Anna Valero

2 October 2017

Blog
CVER Blog:
Three million new apprenticeships – but how many of these are completed and achieved?

Matt Bursnall and Stefan Speckesser from CVER and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research ask what do we currently know about apprenticeship achievement? The government’s target to create three million ...Read more...

Matt Bursnall and Stefan Speckesser

25 September 2017

Blog
CVER Blog:
The benefits of intermediate level skills

Using findings from a study of all countries of the European Union, CVER's Vahé Nafilyan and Dr Stefan Speckesser look at new evidence on the economic and social cost of low skills A new major study by the European Cent...Read more...

Vahé Nafilyan and Stefan Speckesser

5 September 2017

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
What’s happened to rents in London and the UK after the Brexit referendum? Evidence from a new rental index.

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Stephen Gibbons

29 August 2017

Blog
CVER Blog:
Brexit and the skills challenge

Sandra McNally, CVER's Director, on skills in the UK in light of Brexit. The UK’s productivity suffered a shock in 2008 from which it has not recovered, and the ‘skills problem’ needs to be addressed. Within the c...Read more...

Sandra McNally

21 August 2017

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
Brexit and the UK's Immigration Needs

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Jonathan Wadsworth

7 August 2017

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
The Local Economic Impacts of Brexit

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Henry Overman

27 July 2017

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
Is There a Public Sector Pay Premium?

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Jonathan Wadsworth

25 July 2017

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
Interesting Times: Immigration and the UK Election

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Jonathan Wadsworth

4 July 2017

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
East Side Story: Historical Pollution and Neighbourhood Sorting

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Stephan Heblich, Alex Trew and Yanos Zylberberg

22 May 2017

Blog
CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:
The impact of EU development funds in poorer UK regions and the prospect of Brexit

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Marco Di Cataldo

17 April 2017

Blog
ESRC blog:
How English care homes have coped with the National Living Wage

Giulia Giupponi is an ESRC-funded PhD student at the London School of Economics and a research assistant at the Centre for Economic Performance. Stephen Machin is Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics ...Read more...

Giulia Giupponi and Stephen Machin

12 April 2017

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Does immigration harm the job prospects of the UK-born? Brexit and the UK labour market

Following the referendum vote to leave the European Union, the UK faces a trade-off between retaining access to the Single Market and restricting free movement of labour. Barbara Petrongolo considers the likely impact of...Read more...

8 October 2016

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
Let's Talk about Immigration: Young People, Jobs and Training

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Jonathan Wadsworth

5 October 2016

Blog
ESRC blog:
The ‘photo-finish effect’: when third place winners are happier than second

Laura Kudrna, a London School of Economics scholarship PhD candidate, researches the effects of achievement on happiness, particularly focusing on examples of when greater success – be it financial, academic, romantic, o...Read more...

Laura Kudrna

18 August 2016

Blog
LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:
The aftermath of the Brexit vote – the verdict from a derided expert

John Van Reenen was disappointed but not surprised by the UK’s vote to Leave the EU. Whilst his own research predicts serious economic and political damage in the case of Brexit, he thought a Leave vote was a real possib...Read more...

John Van Reenen

3 August 2016

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
The aftermath of the Brexit vote – the verdict from a derided expert

John Van Reenen was disappointed but not surprised by the UK’s vote to Leave the EU. Whilst his own research predicts serious economic and political damage in the case of Brexit, he thought a Leave vote was a real possib...Read more...

John Van Reenen

2 August 2016

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Who voted Leave: the characteristics of individuals mattered, but so did those of local areas

Individual demographics had a huge effect in determining the outcome of the referendum, but the characteristics of local areas mattered as well, explain Monica Langella and Alan Manning. Immigration, the decline in manuf...Read more...

Monica Langella and Alan Manning

6 July 2016

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Foreign investors love Britain – but Brexit would end the affair

Foreign investment brings many benefits to the UK, including higher pay and productivity. But a Brexit vote could end it all, write Swati Dhingra, Gianmarco Ottaviano, Thomas Sampson and John Van Reenen. First, not being...Read more...

Swati Dhingra, Gianmarco Ottaviano, Thomas Sampson and John Van Reenen

22 June 2016

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Why leaving the EU would almost certainly damage our economic prospects

The economic consequences of leaving the EU have been a central focus of the referendum campaign. As June 23 draws near, Jagjit Chadha, Paul Johnson and John Van Reenen bring together the conclusions from their research ...Read more...

Jagjit Chadha, Paul Johnson and John Van Reenen

21 June 2016

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
No one would be spared: how the costs of Brexit would be distributed across households

That leaving the EU would damage the overall economy is now being treated as more of a fact than a speculation. But those for Brexit argue that the rich will be negatively affected while the poor will benefit. This is no...Read more...

Holger Breinlich, Swati Dhingra, Thomas Sampson and John Van Reenen

3 June 2016

Blog
LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:
The ‘Britain Alone’ scenario: how Economists for Brexit defy the laws of gravity

There is a degree of consensus among economists that a Brexit will make us worse off. The exception is recent work by Economists for Brexit. Their forecast of income gains from Brexit contrasts with all other economic an...Read more...

Swati Dhingra, Gianmarco Ottaviano, Thomas Sampson and John Van Reenen

2 June 2016

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
The ‘Britain Alone’ scenario: how Economists for Brexit defy the laws of gravity

There is a degree of consensus among economists that a Brexit will make us worse off. The exception is recent work by Economists for Brexit. Their forecast of income gains from Brexit contrasts with all other economic an...Read more...

Swati Dhingra, Gianmarco I. P. Ottaviano, Thomas Sampson and John Van Reenen

30 May 2016

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
SWOB 10. EU-turn if you want to. Brexit & Immigration

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Jonathan Wadsworth

11 May 2016

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
SWOB 9. Is it Worth It? Are there too many graduates in the UK?

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Jonathan Wadsworth

18 April 2016

Blog
LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:
Growth multiplier: How university expansion increases national income

What impact do universities have on a country’s economy? Outlining the results of a study of universities across 78 countries, Anna Valero and John Van Reenen find that doubling the number of universities in a region inc...Read more...

Anna Valero and John Van Reenen

25 March 2016

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
The question is not whether Brexit will cost the UK in economic terms but how much

For over two years, a research team at the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) has been studying the likely impact of the UK leaving the European Union. Their latest report focuses on the impact of ‘Brexit’ through cha...Read more...

Swati Dhingra, Gianmarco Ottaviano, Thomas Sampson and John Van Reenen

21 March 2016

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
SWOB 8: Employment Performance: UK versus the USA. Jury Out

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Jonathan Wadsworth

18 March 2016

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
SWOB 7:International Women's Day: Reasons to be (a little bit) cheerful about women in the UK labour market, 1, 2, 3

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Jonathan Wadsworth

11 March 2016

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
SWOB 6: Record Employment in the UK? Well yes but.......

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Jonathan Wadsworth

4 March 2016

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
SWOB 5: Rumours of the end of the job for life are a little exaggerated (but not if you're male)

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Jonathan Wadsworth

25 February 2016

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
SWOB 4:Where Have All the Men Gone? Men, Women & Employment in the UK

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Jonathan Wadsworth

16 February 2016

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
SWOB 3: Are Immigrants Taking All the New Jobs?

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Jonathan Wadsworth

9 February 2016

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
SWOB 2: Is the Rise in Low Skilled Jobs holding back Wage Growth?

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Jonathan Wadsworth

2 February 2016

Blog
The State of Working Britain blog:
The State Of Working Britain Blog: 1. Are we there yet? Full Employment in the UK

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Jonathan Wadsworth

26 January 2016

Blog
ESRC blog:
Making the world a happier place

Professor Lord Richard Layard directs the Wellbeing Programme at the ESRC Centre for Economic Performance, and has made major contributions on unemployment, inflation, inequality and post-Communist reform. Author of the ...Read more...

Richard Layard

28 September 2015

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Corbyn and the political economy of nostalgia

Voting for Jeremy Corbyn as leader is a gut reaction to Labour’s electoral defeat. Corbyn does point to some real economic problems facing Britain but his policies are based largely on the kind of wishful thinking that i...Read more...

John Van Reenen

15 August 2015

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Productivity Plan: A sound framework, but gaps in policy persist. More is needed to get productivity growing again

Following the summer budget, the government released a productivity plan aimed at dealing with a chronic issue facing the UK’s economy. Anna Valero and John Van Reenen review the plan, writing that overall the plan is br...Read more...

Anna Valero and John Van Reenen

17 July 2015

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Summer budget 2015: Osborne is right to raise wages, but a clearer productivity plan is required

Yesterday, George Osborne delivered the new government’s first budget in which he surprised many by hiking the minimum wage significantly. John Van Reenen reviews the measures introduced, writing that the Chancellor is r...Read more...

John Van Reenen

9 July 2015

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Where is the real Manifesto for Growth?

As voters go to the polls in a knife-edge election, Labour’s popularity on the NHS is counter-balanced by the Tory’s reputation for economic competence. But is this reputation deserved? John Van Reenen writes that a real...Read more...

John Van Reenen

7 May 2015

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
The NHS: Promises and productivity

In the general election debate about healthcare, all the parties are seeking to portray an NHS protected from major public sector expenditure cuts, with expansion in some areas. But according to Alistair McGuire and John...Read more...

John Van Reenen

22 April 2015

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Regarding public service spending, the UK electorate faces real choices this election

The possible spending plans of Labour and the Tories illustrate the fact that there are real choices to be made at the election, writes John Van Reenen. When viewed over the longer term, the state of the UK economy is no...Read more...

John Van Reenen

30 March 2015

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Budget 2015: What the Chancellor said and didn’t say

Who would have thought an election was around the corner? John Van Reenen looks at what George Osborne had to say in the budget speech as well as what he didn’t say; the Chancellor neither mentioned the productivity prob...Read more...

John Van Reenen

18 March 2015

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Austerity in the UK: past, present and future

In this article, John Van Reenen looks at the UK’s economic performance since the global financial crisis and assesses the impact of austerity policies. He also examines the fiscal plans of the three major parties over t...Read more...

John Van Reenen

11 March 2015

Blog
LSE American Politics and Policy Blog:
Experts react to the Scottish referendum result: The Nays have it

On 18 September, Scotland voted against independence from the United Kingdom by a margin of 55-45 per cent, an event that will be of interest to many in the U.S. given the commentary made there by many in the lead up to ...Read more...

John Van Reenen

20 September 2014

Blog
LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:
Leaving the European Union would likely have a significant negative impact on the UK’s economy

How would leaving the EU affect the UK’s economy? Gianmarco Ottaviano, João Paulo Pessoa, Thomas Sampson and John Van Reenen outline findings from a new report on the economic consequences of a ‘Brexit’. They indicate th...Read more...

Gianmarco Ottaviano, Thomas Sampson and John Van Reenen

22 May 2014

Blog
LSE American Politics and Policy Blog:
Firms with more structured management practices are more productive, innovative and have faster employment growth.

In 2010, the US Census Bureau conducted the first large-scale survey of management practices in America, gathering data on more than 30,000 manufacturing plants. Nicholas Bloom and colleagues find strong links between es...Read more...

John Van Reenen

20 May 2014

Blog
LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:
The state of the UK economy: Diagnosis, prognosis and recommended treatment

The UK economy has experienced a prolonged period of weakness over the last five years. John Van Reenen writes that the real problems for the UK are inadequate long-run investment in infrastructure, innovation and human ...Read more...

John Van Reenen

6 January 2014

Blog
LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:
UK Spending Review 2013: A triumph of politics over reason?

The UK’s Spending Review has been forced on the British Chancellor because weak economic growth has blown a hole in the deficit reduction programme. John Van Reenen welcomes the partial reversal of the hugely damaging cu...Read more...

John Van Reenen

29 June 2013

Blog
LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:
Small isn’t always beautiful: The cost of regulation on French firms

France has a raft of labour-market regulations that kick in for firms with 50 workers or more. Luis Garicano and John Van Reenen use this threshold to identify the economic effects of size-contingent regulations. Such po...Read more...

Luis Garicano and John Van Reenen

1 June 2013

Blog
LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:
No Triple Dip does not mean a good recovery for the UK

John Van Reenen reacts to the news this week that the UK has avoided economic contraction in the last quarter. Whilst Osborne may see this as cause to celebrate, there is nothing commendable about an economy that continu...Read more...

John Van Reenen

27 April 2013

Blog
LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:
The economic legacy of Margaret Thatcher is a mixed bag

John Van Reenen analyses the economic legacy of Margaret Thatcher. In the late 1970s, when the UK was behind other developed nations in terms of material wellbeing, her supply side policies spurred economic revival. Ther...Read more...

John Van Reenen

13 April 2013

Blog
LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:
The books that inspired John Van Reenen: “I think I always enjoy reading Conservative thinkers more than leftist ones. It’s much more fun to have books that really challenge your positions rather than confirming your prejudices”

In a cross-post from the LSE Review of Books blog, John van Reenen, Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Economic Performance LSE, talks us through the must-read comics that first inspired his interest i...Read more...

John Van Reenen

17 November 2012

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
From ‘Plan B’ to ‘Plan V’: what the UK economy needs to reboot and rebalance growth

With the threat of stagflation and interest rate rises, the current economic climate shows little sign of improvement in the near future. John Van Reenen finds that the government’s severe austerity programme, with its v...Read more...

John Van Reenen

25 February 2011

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Academy schools under Labour combated disadvantage and increased pupil achievement: the coalition’s new policy may exacerbate existing inequalities

With the recent accusation that Michael Gove has been sending ‘mixed messages’ over academy schools, it is clear that the policy is still very controversial. Stephen Machin and James Vernoit take a step back and compar...Read more...

Stephen Machin and James Vernoit

18 November 2010

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
To avoid creating a ‘lost generation’, with perhaps a fifth of all 18 year olds unemployed and outside training, a new push on apprenticeships would help

With record numbers of young people not gaining university places, the viability of apprenticeships could make a huge difference in preventing a ‘lost generation’ out of touch with the labour market. Dr Hilary Steedman o...Read more...

Hilary Steedman

13 September 2010

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
LSE Centre for Economic Performance – A Note on Academy School Policy

The Academies programme3 was first introduced by the Labour government in September 2002, with the stated aim of improving the educational outcomes of some of the most disadvantaged pupils in English secondary schools. T...Read more...

Stephen Machin and James Vernoit

10 August 2010

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
LSE Centre for Economic Performance: Reducing Crime: More Police, More Prisons or More Pay?

Crime is usually high on the list of voter concerns. This might seem surprising since total crime has fallen significantly since the mid 1990s. Yet two thirds of the population still (wrongly) think that crime is rising ...Read more...

Olivier Marie

28 July 2010

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
Hospital competition is good for patients, and for efficiency

The coalition government has taken great pains to assure the public that the NHS budget will be ‘ring-fenced’, and thus not subject to the cuts of 20 to 40 per cent forecast for other Whitehall departments. At the same t...Read more...

Zack Cooper

12 July 2010

Blog
LSE British Politics and Policy:
LSE Centre for Economic Performance – all election analyses are now available

The complete series of Election Analyses from the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) is now available, summarising research evidence on some of the key policy battlegrounds of the 2010 UK General Election. The followi...Read more...

5 May 2010