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Blogs and podcasts

Comment, analysis, and debate by CEP researchers on today's economic and social policy issues.

Photograph of a man welding, from Unsplash
Absence rates will stay high until the Covid generation leaves school

How pandemic restrictions impacted pupil absence in 2020 and affected post-pandemic attendance and academic achievement.
Photograph of a man aeroplane towing a banner reading Stay at home
Economic growth requires breaking the cycle of poor work and ill health

Up to six million UK workers, mainly lower-paid, report anxiety over unexpected work hour changes.

Latest Blogs and podcasts

Blog
LSE USAPP:
How women-owned employment agencies in the 1950s and 1960s helped women to get better jobs and better pay

When employers discriminate against women, whether through prejudice or ignorance, women are paid less and miss out on higher-quality jobs. Historically, one way of dealing with this discrimination was for women to set u...Read more...

Jennifer Hunt and Carolyn Moehling

15 October 2024

Blog
LSE EUROPP:
How China's rise has shaped innovation and exit among Europe's solar firms

Should the EU protect European firms by restricting imports of solar technology from China? Drawing on new research, Pia Andres finds that Chinese competition has resulted in many European firms going out of business, bu...Read more...

Pia Andres

14 October 2024

Blog
LSE Inequalities:
Sliding down the Great Gatsby curve in search of the Scandinavian dream

The new UK government has separate missions to break down the barriers to opportunity and to boost growth - together, the "Scandinavian dream". The problem, write Steve Machin and Lee Elliot Major, is Britain's high leve...Read more...

Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin

9 October 2024

Blog
LSE IQ:
Podcast: What's it like to win a Nobel Prize?

Nobel Prizes and the "Nobel Prize in Economics", more accurately known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, are awarded every year in October. This month, the LSE IQ podcast sp...Read more...

Christopher A. Pissarides

9 October 2024

Blog
Project Syndicate:
Can Europe Create an Innovation Economy?

After the 30 "glorious" years of economic growth following World War II, European policymakers failed to adopt the institutions and policies to promote disruptive innovation. Now, Europe urgently needs to adopt a new eco...Read more...

Philippe Aghion, Mathias Dewatripont and Jean Tirole

7 October 2024

Blog
LSE Politics and Policy:
Why higher house prices lead to higher borrowing

In the past three decades, house prices and mortgage debt in the UK have risen much faster than income. In other words, people end up borrowing more money when house prices go up. This finding goes against many canonical...Read more...

Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt, Nikodem Szumilo and Jagdish Tripathy

2 October 2024

Blog
The Rest is Money:
The Economics of Happiness (podcast)

Robert and Steph are joined by Lord Richard Layard, a 90 year old economist who has dedicated his life to researching and encouraging politicians to consider the happiness of their populations when taking decisions. Th...Read more...

Richard Layard

30 September 2024

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Workers in finance from lower socio-economic backgrounds don't have equal voice

Employee voice refers to the informal and voluntary sharing of ideas, suggestions, concerns or opinions about work-related matters, with the goal of driving improvement or change. When voice is suppressed or marginalised...Read more...

Grace Lordan and Nikita

26 September 2024

Blog
LSE Politics and Policy:
Absence rates will stay high until the Covid generation leaves school

School absences increased massively during the Covid-19 pandemic and remain at higher levels. Our new research (funded by the Nuffield Foundation) shows that the high level of pupil absence in England can be attributed t...Read more...

Stephen Gibbons, Sandra McNally and Piero Montebruno

26 September 2024

Blog
The Conversation:
Why building new towns isn't the answer to the UK's housing crisis

The UK's new government is intent on building 1.5 million homes over the next five years. It's all part of the plan to address the housing supply and affordability crisis. Many of these homes are to be built in the form...Read more...

Nikhil Datta and Amrita Kulka

25 September 2024

Blog
Vox EU:
Closing the health gap: How chronic illness drives health inequality early on

Though health disparities have long been the subject of research and debate, life expectancy gaps between rich and poor remain striking, even in countries with universal access to healthcare. This column analyses the roo...Read more...

Kaveh Danesh, Jonathan Kolstad, William Parker and Johannes Spinnewijn

24 September 2024

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Economic growth requires breaking the cycle of poor work and ill health

Work is an important part of our lives and crucial to wellbeing. But "good" work that offers security and autonomy is unevenly distributed. Workers in lower-paid jobs often find themselves trapped in "bad" jobs, characte...Read more...

Aadya Bahl

19 September 2024

Blog
LSE Business Review:
Education makes women, not men, more likely to have children

Given the wide-ranging consequences of declining fertility rates, academics and policymakers around the world are increasingly interested in understanding what influences men's and women's decision to start a family. Han...Read more...

Kristiina Huttunen, Tiina Kuuppelomaki, Mikko Silliman and Hanna Virtanen

13 September 2024

Blog
Vox EU:
Global environmental cooperation and innovation

In the ongoing debate on climate change, one of the most pressing challenges is fostering effective international cooperation. This column examines the success of the 1987 'Montreal Protocol' in phasing out harmful chlor...Read more...

Eugenie Dugoua

12 September 2024

Blog
Centre for cities:
City Talks: Why we are seeing a boom in urban economics research (Podcast)

We are constantly finding out more about where people live and work, how people move around, where businesses choose to locate, and where people spend their money - all of which adds more depth to our picture of cities. ...Read more...

Andrew Carter, Neil Lee, Max Nathan and Helen Simpson

12 September 2024

Blog
Vox EU:
The economics of organisational strategy

Many of today's global problems, such as sustainability, technology, skills, and diversity can only be solved by organisations. This column argues that more work is needed to understand strategic management by firms, how...Read more...

Ghazala Azmat, Florian Englmaier, Alfonso Gambardella, Maria Guadalupe, Raffaella Sadun and Catherine Thomas

9 September 2024

Blog
Vox EU:
Online versus in-person services: Effects on patients and providers

Switching the delivery of one-to-one services from in-person to online offers potential cost savings and increased convenience, but what are the impacts on providers and consumers? This column studies the effects of onli...Read more...

Amanda Dahlstrand, Nestor Le Nestour and Guy Michaels

7 September 2024

Blog
Vox Talks (podcast):
The economics of strategy (podcast)

Organisations don't just provide employment: they solve, or attempt to solve, important problems in our society. Organizational economics has made some impressive strides in recent years to show what choices organisation...Read more...

Ghazala Azmat

6 September 2024

Blog
IMF Finance and Development magazine:
A fivefold increase in remote work since the pandemic could boost economic growth and bring wider benefits

Economics is famous for being the dismal science. Sadly, recent work highlighting the slowdown in productivity growth stretching back to the 1950s is no exception. But here Nicholas Bloom takes a more cheerful view becau...Read more...

Nicholas Bloom

4 September 2024

Blog
Vox EU:
Good management practices are great for productivity ... as well as profit shifting

Following the release of the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers, there has been renewed research into profit shifting by multinational firms. This column utilises a novel dataset to show that well-managed subsidiaries...Read more...

Katarzyna Bilicka and Daniela Scur

4 September 2024

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