Results

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Endogenous mobility in pandemics: theory and evidence from the United States

We analyze infectious diseases in a general equilibrium model with endogenous mobility, where forward-looking agents weigh disease risks against economic opportunities in cross-regional mobility decisions. This generates...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Place-based industrial policies in the long run

There is growing evidence that place-based industrial policies lead to positive economic effects. This column analyses the 'Million-Rouble Plants' programme of the 1950s when the Soviet Union helped China build state-of-...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

From pilot to policy: experimental evidence from scaling online tutoring

Can effective tutoring programs survive the transition from pilot to scale, and from researcher to government implementers? We address this question using a randomized controlled trial of an online mathematics tutoring p...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Adoption, incidence and welfare impacts of interest-free loans: evidence from solar PV

Steep declines in solar PV costs raises questions about whether, and how, to continue support. We leverage administrative microdata on the near-universe of UK domestic PV and a matched difference-in-differences design ex...Read more...

Chapter

Fostering green and inclusive productivity growth

in The London Consensus

This chapter explains the main ideas underpinning the Schumpeterian growth paradigm and how it provides a new lens to look at the determinants and effects of the growth process. Schumpeter was pessimistic about the futur...Read more...

Journal article

Children and Youth Services Review:

Supplemental nutrition assistance program and parents? time investments in children

An emerging literature explores whether social policy programs have benefits to families and their children, above and beyond economic and human capital outcomes. We investigate whether the Supplemental Nutrition Assista...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

New approaches to measure (increasing) concentration in Europe

Concentration (the share of a market's output produced by its largest firms) is a key proxy for measuring market competition. This column introduces a cross-country dataset to measure concentration at the industry level ...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics:

Do carbon offsets offset carbon?

We develop and implement a new method for identifying wasted subsidies and use it to provide systematic evidence of the misallocation of carbon offsets in the Clean Development Mechanism - the world's largest carbon offs...Read more...

Journal article

Economics & Human Biology:

Loneliness during the Covid-19 pandemic: evidence from five European countries

We use quarterly panel data from the COME-HERE survey covering five European countries to analyse three facets of the experience of loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, in terms of prevalence, loneliness peake...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

A wellbeing cost-benefit analysis of raising the state pension age

Governments of developed countries are facing growing pressures from the fiscal demands of an ageing population. To cope with this, they have tried to get individuals to work longer, primarily by raising the ages at whic...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Paternity leave and child development

We study the effect of paternity leave on early child development. We collect survey data on 5,000 children under age six in Spain and exploit several extensions of paternity leave that took place between 2017 and 2021. ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

How climate change concerns affect voters

The effects of climate change have become far more noticeable in recent years, with abnormally high temperatures recorded across the world. Maria Cotofan, Karlygash Kuralbayeva and Konstantinos Matakos examine how spikes...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economic Studies:

Does pricing carbon mitigate climate change? Firm-level evidence from the European Union Emissions Trading System

In theory, market-based regulatory instruments correct market failures at least cost. However, evidence on their efficacy remains scarce. Using administrative data, we estimate that, on average, the European Union Emissi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Government contracting and living wages > minimum wages

Government procurement accounts for a significant share of GDP, and environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) clauses in government contracts have become common across developed economies. This paper studies o...Read more...

Blog

What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth:

With great power comes great responsibility (for evaluation?)

Last week saw the final local government elections before the next general election. Amongst councillors changing places - or staying put - across the country, these elections ushered in two new metro mayors: one for Yor...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Taking back control? Quasi-experimental evidence on the impact of retirement on locus of control

We use Australian panel data to examine the impact of retirement on individual locus of control, a socio-emotional skill with substantial explanatory power for a broad range of life outcomes. Exploiting the eligibility a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Global warming cools voters down: how climate concerns affect policy preferences

This study examines how regional temperature variations across OECD countries influence political behavior and support for offset policies. Our analysis reveals that exposure to higher temperatures correlates with politi...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

What next for Poland's economy?

Poland's new government is prioritising competent policy-making, the rule of law and investment in skills and education. There is real promise that new policies will be based on solid research evidence, including the app...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Endogenous mobility in pandemics: theory and evidence from the United States

We study infectious diseases in a spatial epidemiology model with forward-looking individuals who weigh disease environments against economic opportunities when moving across regions. This endogenous mobility allows regi...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy :

Local retail prices, product variety, and neighborhood change

We study how local grocery markets within a city are affected by changes in housing markets. Our empirical strategy exploits a shift in the spatial distribution of construction activity induced by a large-scale, place-ba...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Public Economics:

Powers that be? Political alignment, government formation, and government stability

We study how partisan alignment across levels of government affects coalition formation and government stability using a regression discontinuity design and a large dataset of Spanish municipal elections. We document a p...Read more...

Journal article

Labour Economics:

Working life and human capital investment: causal evidence from a pension reform

In this paper, we analyze if an increase in the working life leads to more human capital investment via on-the-job training. We obtain RDD-estimates from a sharp date-of-birth cut-off, generated by a pension reform that ...Read more...

Blog

Africa at LSE:

Public disclosure policies don't improve tax collection in Uganda

Public disclosure policies are designed to raise tax compliance where alternative enforcement capacity is limited. But they can also have negative consequences by showcasing the true extent of tax compliance, write Priya...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Politics :

Wait and see? Public opinion dynamics after terrorist attacks

We use the occurrence of the London bombings in July 7 2005 during the fieldwork period of the British Social Attitudes Survey to analyse the dynamics of public support for measures curbing core freedoms. We observe no c...Read more...

Blog

Working on Wellbeing:

Lord Richard Layard on putting wellbeing top of the policy agenda (podcast)

Richard Layard talks to Sarah Cunningham about how wellbeing science has developed over the past half-century, and how he is calling on policymakers and business leaders to put wellbeing at the heart of decision-making....Read more...

CentrePiece article

Women in the workplace: 50 years of change

Decades of progress have seen greater opportunities for women in the workplace, but sizeable gender gaps remain in most indicators of economic achievement. Stefania Albanesi, Claudia Olivetti and Barbara Petrongolo revie...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization :

Who promotes gender-sensitive policies?

We study whether female-headed local governments in Spain are more likely to engage in gender sensitive policies such as long-term care support, pre-schooling, or work and family-life balancing services. Using a fuzzy re...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Political Economy:

The comparative advantage of firms

Resource-based theories propose that firms grow by diversifying into products that use common capabilities. We provide evidence for common-input capabilities, using a policy that removed entry barriers in input markets t...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Families, labor markets and policy

Using comparable data for 24 countries since the 1970s, we document gender convergence in schooling, employment and earnings, marriage delay and the accompanying decline in fertility, and the large remaining gaps in labo...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Tracking business dynamism during the Covid-19 pandemic: new cross-country evidence and visualisation tool

Stefano Agresti, Flavio Calvino, Chiara Criscuolo, Francesco Manaresi and Rudy Verlhac employ a new data visualisation tool to reveal the impact on business dynamism of the Covid-19 crisis in 2020 and in recovery. Findin...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Quantifying the full impact of country-specific policies on trade flows

Rebecca Freeman, Mario Larch, Angelos Theodorakopoulos and Yoto Yotov propose a solution to issues measuring country-specific impact using structural gravity models - a popular way to analyse the impact of trade policie...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Earning less than before Covid-19, the self-employed struggle to make ends meet

Amid the renewed drives for economic growth, self-employed workers still struggle to recover fully from the COVID-19 crisis. Robert Blackburn and Maria Ventura write that In September 2021, 28% of workers reported financ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Covid-19:

Some of the self-employed are still struggling amid uncertainty about whether they could claim grants

The self-employed have not recovered from the pandemic despite five rounds of government support, find Robert Blackburn (University of Liverpool), Stephen Machin and Maria Ventura (LSE). More than a quarter are in financ...Read more...

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...

CEP Insights

Green Growth

Many countries have plans for a "green recovery" from the pandemic, in which the invention and diffusion of "clean" technologies and practices are central. How can environmental and broader industrial policies be combine...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Working life and human capital investment

This paper provides a novel test of a key prediction of human capital theory that educational investment decisions depend on the length of the pay-off period. We obtain causal estimates by leveraging a unique reform of t...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics:

The impact of public employment: evidence from Bonn

This paper evaluates the impact of changes in public employment on private sector activity using the creation of the new West German government in Bonn in the wake of the Second World War as a source of exogenous variati...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Geography:

Colonial legacies: shaping African cities

Institutions persisting from colonial rule affect the spatial structure and conditions under which 100s of millions of people live in Sub-saharan African cities. In a sample of 318 cities, Francophone cities have more co...Read more...

Journal article

Economic Policy:

School choice during a period of radical school reform. Evidence from academy conversion in England

We study how demand responds to the rebranding of existing state schools as autonomous 'academies' in the context of a radical and large-scale reform to the English education system. The academy programme encouraged scho...Read more...

Journal article

Revista do Servico Publico:

Lockdown 101: managing economic lockdowns in an epidemic

Countries worldwide have implemented lockdown measures to contain the covid-19 pandemic. After more than three months of restrictions to economic activities in many countries, the question has turned to the best ways to ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Spillover effects from new housing supply

I estimate spillovers from new housing supply on house prices, crime rates, and household income. To estimate these effects, I use exogenous variation in supply induced by a housing subsidy implemented in middle-income n...Read more...

CEP Brexit analysis

The economic impact of Boris Johnson?s Brexit proposals

The Prime Minister Boris Johnson has set out a means of escaping the Brexit stalemate, but his new Brexit proposals have, as yet, not managed to overcome the impasse. What has been striking, though, is the extent to whic...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics:

Relocation of public sector workers: evaluating a place-based policy ,

This paper investigates the local labor market impact of a UK relocation initiative ? the 2004 Lyons Review. The review resulted in the dispersal of about 25,000 civil service jobs out of London and the South East toward...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The comparative advantage of firms

Resource based theories propose that firms grow by diversifying into products which use common capabilities. We provide evidence for common input capabilities using a policy that removed entry barriers in input markets t...Read more...

CEP Brexit analysis

The economic consequences of the Brexit deal

Amidst the political fighting and fevered speculation about leadership challenges and parliamentary defeats for the government, one crucial issue seems to have been lost from sight. The deal negotiated with the European ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Economic consequences of family policies

There is no compelling evidence that extended parental leave rights have a positive impact on female employment, according to research by Claudia Olivetti and Barbara Petrongolo, which analyses the labour market effects ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

How 'local' are local labour markets?

If we want to create jobs in disadvantaged local areas, the idea of `local? needs to be revisited. Alan Manning and Barbara Petrongolo explain the problem of thinking of geographical space as non-overlapping single labou...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Interaction of Public and Private Employment: Evidence from a German Government Move

We use the German government move from Bonn to Berlin in 1999 to test competing views about the impact of public employment on private sector activity in a local labor market. A relocated public sector job might create n...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

The Impact of Public Employment: Evidence from Bonn

This paper evaluates the impact of public employment on private sector activity using the relocation of the German federal government from Berlin to Bonn in the wake of the Second World War as a source of exogenous varia...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Perspectives:

The economic consequences of family policies: lessons from a century of legislation in high-income countries

By the early 21st century, most high-income countries have put into effect a host of generous and virtually gender-neutral parental leave policies and family benefits, with the multiple goals of gender equity, higher fer...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

The Energy Costs of Historic Preservation

We explore the impact of historical preservation policies on domestic energy consumption. Using panel data for England from 2006 to 2013 and employing a fixed effects-strategy, we document that (i) rising national energy...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The key determinants of happiness and misery

Understanding the key determinants of people?s life satisfaction will suggest policies for how best to reduce misery and promote wellbeing. This paper provides evidence from survey data on USA, Australia, Britain and Ind...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Brexit as Climate Policy: The Agenda on Energy and the Environment

The Great Recession and a sluggish economic recovery were instrumental in meeting the legally binding climate change targets that the UK has set for itself. But without more drastic policy interventions, it is unlikely t...Read more...

CEP election analysis

The NHS and Social Care: Prospects for Funding, Staffing and Performance into the 2020s

Health featured prominently in the 2016 referendum on the UK?s membership of the European Union (EU), with the Leave campaign?s claim that Brexit would mean that #350 million extra money per week could be transferred fro...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Origins of happiness

Understanding the key determinants of people?s life satisfaction makes it possible to suggest policies for how best to reduce misery and promote wellbeing. A forthcoming book by Richard Layard and colleagues discusses ev...Read more...

CEP report

UK growth: a new chapter

The UK Economy is at a critical juncture. Leaving the EU creates economic challenges that necessitate widespread policy change. But this also generates an opportunity to tackle some of the long-standing challenges which ...Read more...

Book

Origins of Happiness

What makes people happy? Why should governments care about people's well-being? How would policy change if well-being were the main objective? The Origins of Happiness seeks to revolutionize how we think about human prio...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The economic consequences of family policies: lessons from a century of legislation in high-income countries

We draw lessons from existing work and our own analysis on the effects of parental leave and other interventions aimed at aiding families. The outcomes of interest are female employment, gender gaps in earnings and ferti...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Children's reading: evaluating a new teaching method

Children at risk of struggling with their reading get long-term benefits from `synthetic phonics?, the current favoured method among education policy-makers in England. The benefits for disadvantaged pupils justify the f...Read more...

CEP Brexit analysis

Brexit and the impact of immigration on the UK

A reduction in immigration from the European Union (EU) following a vote for Brexit would not lead to any improvement in living standards for those born in the UK. Cuts in EU immigration would not offset the big fall in ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Where does the wind blow? Green preferences and spatial misallocation in renewable energy sector

Are "greener" investments less efficient? This paper looks at the location choices by wind power investors. I measures the efficiency loss in this sector due to wrong project location and explore the factors contributing...Read more...

CEP report

Why Governments Won't Invest

The UK Government is currently exerting a sharp and tightening squeeze on public investment at a time when borrowing for public investment has never, historically, been cheaper with interest rates close to zero in real t...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Crime and violence in Latin America and the Caribbean: towards evidence-based policies

Latin America and the Caribbean account for a third of the world?s homicides but under 10% of the world?s population. What?s more, homicide rates in the region are higher than they should be given countries? levels of in...Read more...

Journal article

Research Policy:

Do inventors talk to strangers? On proximity and collaborative knowledge creation

This paper examines the characteristics of the collaborations between inventors in the United Kingdom (UK) by looking at what types of proximities - geographic, organisational, cognitive, social, and cultural-ethnic - be...Read more...

CEP real wages update

Slowing UK Wage Growth

We have previously examined the path of nominal and real wages in the UK (Blanchflower and Machin, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c). In that work, we expressed the view that in recent years there has been sufficient slack in the lab...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Making a difference in education

A new book by Sandra McNally and colleagues surveys the evidence on which policies and practices are working in UK schools....Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... A Global Apollo Programme to tackle climate change

Leading thinkers across the worlds of science, public service and academia have launched a new global programme to combat climate change. Richard Layard outlines their proposal for big public investment in research that ...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Does management matter in schools?

We collect data on management practices in over 1,800 high schools in eight countries. We show that higher management quality is strongly associated with better educational outcomes. The UK, Sweden, Canada and the US obt...Read more...

CEP election analysis

A New Priority for Mental Health

Mental illness (especially depression and chronic anxiety) is the biggest single cause of misery in advanced countries. But only one quarter of those who are ill receive treatment. Mental health is crucial for wellbeing ...Read more...

CEP election analysis

#ElectionEconomics: The Research Evidence on Key Issues for Voters in the 2015 UK General Election

Please see the CEP #ElectionEconomics report(Paper 1)and the Executive Summary (Paper 2) that cover all the election 2015 briefings, discussing the research evidence on 15 of the UK's key policy battlegrounds: immigratio...Read more...

CEP election analysis

UK Housing and Planning Policies: the evidence from economic research

Housing affordability is a key concern of an ever-larger fraction of UK voters who are crammed into artificially limited space. At the same time, a lot of wealth lies in housing assets and there are many vested interests...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Health: How Will the NHS Fare in a Cold Climate?

With the NHS a central issue of the 2015 general election, the parties are debating funding, the form of provision, quality and productivity. This paper looks at the NHS record under the coalition government and consider...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Gender Gaps in the UK Labour Market: jobs, pay and family-friendly policies

Differences in the labour market experiences of men and women have fallen over the last 20 years, but there are still sizeable `gender gaps? in employment and wages. Certain factors help to explain a good part of gender ...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Paying for Higher Education

The UK Higher Education sector has changed radically as a result of Coalition Policies ? most obviously through the dramatic increase in the tuition fee cap from #3,375 to #9,000 per year. However, the greatest issue ari...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Schools: The Evidence on Academies, Resources and Pupil Performance

England?s performance in international tests of student achievement continues to be disappointing. Further improvement is essential not only for students? themselves but also for economic growth. This briefing considers ...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Should We Stay or Should We Go? The economic consequences of leaving the EU

We analyze the effects of Brexit on the UK economy. The most important economic consequence of Brexit would likely be reduced trade with EU countries. We consider an optimistic scenario with relatively small increases in...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Productivity and Business Policies

UK productivity stagnated after the Great Recession of 2008-09 and remains about 15 percent below historical trends. This 'productivity puzzle' is due to a mixture of cyclical and structural effects - the fall is not ent...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Austerity: Growth Costs and Post-Election Plans

The austerity programme of the coalition government knocked at least one percent per year off growth in the first two years of this Parliament. In retrospect, this looks like a mistake and the slower pace of austerity in...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Immigration and the UK Labour Market

During periods of strong economic growth, migration is and has always been important for filling gaps in the labour market. Perceptions do not seem to line up with the existing academic evidence. On balance, the evidence...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Policy for better mental health

Treating mental illness should be a top national priority, especially as proven psychological therapies effectively cost nothing. Richard Layard explains how CEP research has led to a new deal for mental health ? but muc...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

Industry compensation under relocation risk: a firm-level analysis of the EU emissions trading scheme

When regulated firms are offered compensation to prevent them from relocating, efficiency requires that payments be distributed across firms so as to equalize marginal relocation probabilities, weighted by the damage cau...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Eliciting taxpayer preferences increases tax compliance

Two experiments show that eliciting taxpayer preferences on government spending?providing taxpayer agency--increases tax compliance. We first create an income and taxation environment in a laboratory setting to test for ...Read more...

CEP policy analysis

Immigration, the European Union and the UK Labour Market

During periods of strong economic growth, migration is and has always been important for filling gaps in the labour market. On balance, the evidence for the UK labour market suggests that fears about adverse consequences...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Political competition and the limits of political compromise

We consider an economy where competing political parties alternate in office. Due to rent-seeking motives, incumbents have an incentive to set public expenditures above the socially optimum level. Parties cannot commit t...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Relocation of Public Sector Workers: Evaluating a Place-based Policy

This paper investigates the local labor market impact of a UK relocation initiative, the 2014 Lyons Review. The review resulted in the dispersal of about 25,000 civil service jobs out of London and the South East towards...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Tackling long-term unemployment

Barbara Petrongolo surveys the research evidence on the effectiveness of the 'sticks' and 'carrots' of active labour market policies....Read more...

CentrePiece article

Economics of higher education

In brief: Economics of higher education...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Does school spending matter?

Increases in resources for schools are typically more effective in disadvantaged schools and for disadvantaged pupils. That is one of the many findings of a review by Steve Gibbons and Sandra McNally of the research evid...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The effects of resources across school phases: a summary of recent evidence

This report provides an overview and discussion of the past decade of academic evidence on the causal effects of resources in schooling on students? outcomes. Early evidence lacked good strategies for estimating the effe...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Unemployment in the Great Recession

This paper studies the responses of unemployment in Germany, the United States and Britain to the Great Recession of 2008-09 by making use of Beveridge curve analysis, and in the entire OECD with other techniques. It is ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Smoking, Income and Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from Smoking Bans

This paper investigates the effects of local smoking bans on different outcomes using county and time variation over the last 20 years in the US. First, I find no evidence that local smoking bans in bars, restaurants and...Read more...

CEP report

Investing for Prosperity: Skills, Infrastructure and Innovation

What institutions and policies are needed to sustain UK economic growth in the dynamic world economy of the twentyfirst century? After years of inadequate investment in skills, infrastructure and innovation, there are lo...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Social policies and labor market outcomes in Latin America and the Caribbean: a review of the existing evidence

Latin America and the Caribbean have become in the last decade or so a formidable laboratory for the design and implementation of innovative social policies. In the face of an unprecedented surge in the number of non-con...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Immigration and the UK labour market

David Metcalf, chair of the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), outlines recent changes in the regulatory framework for immigrant workers....Read more...

CEP US election analysis

Healthcare Reform: The US Policy Debate

The ability of the next US president to rein in spending on healthcare and improve the productivity of the healthcare system is largely going to determine the country?s fiscal future. That is one of the conclusions of th...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Optimal Policy for Macro-Financial Stability

In this paper we study whether policy makers should wait to intervene until a financial crisis strikes or rather act in a preemptive manner. We study this question in a relatively simple dynamic stochastic general equili...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Mental illness and the NHS

Richard Layard and colleagues reveal the shocking scale of mental illness in Britain - and how little the NHS does about it....Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Mother tongue: the economics of language learning

Javier Ortega and Gregory Verdugo look at the drivers of language assimilation in the English- and French-majority cities in Canada....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Capital Controls or Exchange Rate Policy? A Pecuniary Externality Perspective

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, a new policy paradigm has emerged in which old-fashioned policies such as capital controls and other government distortions have become part of the standard policy toolkit...Read more...

CEP policy analysis

Immigration and the UK Labour Market: The latest evidence from economic research

During periods of strong economic growth, migration is and has always been important for filling gaps in the labour market. On balance, the evidence for the UK labour market suggests that fears about the consequences of ...Read more...