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Policy analyses and reports

Summaries and analysis of current policy and economic developments. These reports are written in an accessible way for non-specialists. Issues covered include: Brexit, education, immigration, growth, social mobility and the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Brexit Analysis
Brexit and consumer food prices: May 2023 update

Brexit continues to affect the UK economy. This report updates the dataset found in an earlier study, showing that higher non-tariff barriers due to Brexit are affecting food price inflation and costing households in the UK. Read more...
Image: Covid series covier illustration. Copyright: Raphael Whittle
From Covid-19 to collapse? The self-employed and the cost of living crisis

LSE-CEP survey of the self-employed finds that the cost of living crisis is hitting small businesses particularly hard, with energy price rises and output costs compounding the effects of Covid-19. Read more...

Latest Policy analyses and reports

CEP Brexit analysis
Brexit and consumer food prices: May 2023 update

Brexit continues to affect the UK economy. The results in this report are updates to the original study of Bakker et al. (2022), showing that higher non-tariff barriers due to Brexit are affecting food price inflation an...Read more...

Jan David Bakker, Nikhil Datta, Richard Davies and Josh De Lyon

24 May 2023

CEP Covid-19 analysis
From Covid-19 to collapse? The self-employed and the cost of living crisis

The sixth LSE-CEP survey of the self-employed was undertaken in November 2022 and found that the downward trend in income levels of the self-employed reported in May 2022 has continued. The cost of living crisis is hitti...Read more...

Robert Blackburn, Stephen Machin and Maria Ventura

10 February 2023

Submission to a parliamentary inquiry and government consultation
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee - UK plc 2050 (non-inquiry session)

The session examines what policies could restore competitiveness and address the country's intractable productivity and regional inequality problems while also reaching net zero....Read more...

Anna Valero

7 February 2023

Submission to a parliamentary inquiry and government consultation
Submission to the independent review of the UK Government's approach to net zero

Read more...

Brendan Curran, Esin Serin, Adithya Subramoni and Anna Valero

9 November 2022

CEP Covid-19 analysis
Covid-19 and the self-employed - A two year update

The fifth LSE-CEP survey of the self-employed of May 2022 provides an up to date picture of how Covid-19 and its aftermath keep affecting the self-employed. The findings show that, although working on average a little mo...Read more...

Robert Blackburn, Stephen Machin and Maria Ventura

28 July 2022

CEP Covid-19 analysis
Covid-19 and local crime rates in England and Wales - two years into the pandemic

We analyse how crime trends evolved during the Covid-19 pandemic leveraging public data on local crimes. Police have recorded fewer crimes overall during the pandemic, and the decrease is driven by a large decrease in ac...Read more...

Shubhangi Agrawal, Tom Kirchmaier and Carmen Villa-Llera

17 March 2022

Submission to a parliamentary inquiry and government consultation
Meeting housing demand

House of Lords: Built Environment Committee, 1st Report of Session 2021 to 22....Read more...

Christian A. L. Hilber

10 January 2022

CEP Covid-19 analysis
Real-time updates on the UK economy: trends, expectations and implications from business survey data

Covid-19 has caused substantial shocks to the UK economy, highlighting a need for real-time data to analyse trends. We use monthly business survey data from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) to document recent ...Read more...

Josh De Lyon and Swati Dhingra

15 December 2021

Submission to a parliamentary inquiry and government consultation
House of Lords COVID-19 Committee - The long-term impact of the pandemic on towns and cities

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed our relationship with towns and cities, and the dynamic within those areas. This inquiry looks at the long-term impact of the pandemic on large towns and smaller cities, con...Read more...

Tom Kirchmaier and Carmen Villa-Llera

7 December 2021

CEP Covid-19 analysis
Covid-19 and the self-employed - 18 months into the crisis

A year and a half into the Covid-19 pandemic, growth and economic recovery are the latest watchwords amongst labour market commentators in the UK. In this report we continue to monitor the situation of the self-employed ...Read more...

Robert Blackburn, Stephen Machin and Maria Ventura

18 November 2021

CEP Covid-19 analysis
The business response to Covid-19 one year on: findings from the second wave of the CEP-CBI survey on technology adoption

We present new data from a survey of 425 UK businesses conducted in July 2021 in partnership with the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which seeks to understand the ways in which firms have innovated one year on ...Read more...

Juliana Oliveira-Cunha, Capucine Riom and Anna Valero

10 November 2021

CEP report
Are 'green' jobs good jobs?

The transition to net-zero will have far-reaching but unequal effects, as 'dirty' jobs disappear while new jobs aligned with or supportive of the net-zero objective - which we refer to as 'green' - are created. As govern...Read more...

Mirko Draca, Jiaqi Li, Sabrina Muller, Viet Nguyen-Tien, Capucine Riom and Anna Valero

28 October 2021

CEP report
Seizing sustainable growth opportunities from carbon capture, usage and storage in the UK

Seizing opportunities from the CCUS value chain can be part of an economy-wide, net-zero-aligned growth path in the UK. The UK has responded to the climate emergency facing the world with an economy-wide target to reach...Read more...

Pia Andres, Ralf Martin, Penny Mealy, Esin Serin, Arjun Shah and Anna Valero

22 September 2021

Submission to a parliamentary inquiry and government consultation
A Response to the Consultation Document: 'A new pro-competition regime for digital markets'

Professor John Van Reenen writing to submit his views on the government's consultation document 'A new pro-competition regime for digital markets'....Read more...

John Van Reenen

1 September 2021

Submission to a parliamentary inquiry and government consultation
Jobs, growth, and productivity after coronavirus

The Committee will examine how the Government can reduce and mitigate economic scarring and job losses after the pandemic, how much difference the Government can make to economic growth, and what has caused the UK's prod...Read more...

Anna Valero

12 July 2021

CEP Covid-19 analysis
Learning loss since lockdown: variation across the home nations

Empirical analysis of secondary microdata, bespoke social mobility surveys and administrative school attendance data reveal the extent of learning losses that have evolved in the four nations of the UK over the year of t...Read more...

Lee Elliot Major, Andrew Eyles and Stephen Machin

7 July 2021

CEP Covid-19 analysis
City of dreams no more, a year on: worklessness and active labour market policies in urban India

This report provides key findings from a new field survey to assess the long-term impact of Covid-19 on urban workers in low-income areas of India. The survey took place during February and March 2021, just before the s...Read more...

Swati Dhingra and Fjolla Kondirolli

2 July 2021

CEP Covid-19 analysis
The impacts of Covid-19 and Brexit on the UK economy: early evidence in 2021

We use real-time firm survey data to describe trends in the UK economy in early 2021. As of April 2021, business activity and expectations for the future have improved. However, real wage growth is down and firms are rep...Read more...

Josh De Lyon and Swati Dhingra

6 May 2021

CEP Covid-19 analysis
The pandemic and the housing market: a British story

When Covid-19 struck, the British housing market went into free-fall. Land Registry data show prices, transactions and construction all tumbled. But demand was boosted both by the general measures taken to support the ec...Read more...

Paul Cheshire, Christian A. L. Hilber and Olivier Schöni

30 March 2021

Submission to a parliamentary inquiry and government consultation
Covid-19: Education

Submission to the House of Commons Select Committee....Read more...

Lee Elliot Major and Andrew Eyles

25 March 2021

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