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Blog

Economics Observatory:

Ideas for the UK: election economics week one

Should the UK have compulsory national service? Do we need more police? How bad are NHS waiting lists? What about our failing water companies? Over the past week, the UK has seen a host of new policy proposals in these a...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Will the NHS long-term workforce plan solve the current crisis?

Proposals to solve staffing shortages in the NHS focus on training more staff and retaining those already working in surgeries, clinics and hospitals. But Giuseppe Moscelli, Jo Blanden, Marco Mello and Melisa Sayli say t...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

Will the NHS long-term workforce plan solve the current crisis?

New proposals to solve staffing shortages in the NHS focus on training more staff and retaining those already working in surgeries, clinics and hospitals. But the plan may be insufficiently ambitious; and it requires mor...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Acquisitions, management and efficiency in Rwanda's coffee industry

Well-functioning markets allocate assets to owners that improve firms' management and performance. We study the effects of ownership changes on coffee mills in Rwanda - an industry in which managing relationships with fa...Read more...

Journal article

Quarterly Journal of Economics:

Competition and relational contracts in the Rwanda coffee chain

How does competition affect market outcomes when formal contracts are not enforceable and parties resort to relational contracts? Difficulties with measuring relational contracts and dealing with the endogeneity of compe...Read more...

Journal article

Economics and Politics:

The political economy of trade and migration: evidence from the US Congress

We compare the drivers of U.S. congressmen's votes on trade and migration reforms since the 1970s. Standard trade theory suggests that trade reforms that lower barriers to goods from less skilled-labor abundant countries...Read more...

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...

CEP election analysis

Health and social care

The National Health Service (NHS) is arguably the one national institution that unifies the country in terms of general public support. But there is growing concern about the long-term sustainability of the NHS, with 57%...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Housing

Housing affordability is a key concern of an ever-larger fraction of UK voters who are crammed into artificially limited space. It also underlies the sense of being shut out of prosperity and unable to escape declining l...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The political economy of trade and migration: evidence from the US Congress

We systematically examine the drivers of U.S. congressmen's votes on trade and migration reforms since the 1970's. Standard trade theory suggests that reforms that lower barriers to goods and migrants should have similar...Read more...

CEP election analysis

#GE2017Economists: The Research Evidence on Key Issues for Voters in the 2017 UK General Election

The unexpected UK general election of 2017 was intended to be all about Brexit, one that will give the incoming government a mandate to negotiate the terms of the UK?s exit from the European Union (EU). But many other pu...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...

CEP discussion paper

Multi-product firms and product quality

We examine the global operations of multi-product firms. We present a flexible heterogeneous-firm trade model with either limited or strong scope for quality differentiation. Using customs data for China during 2002-2006...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Multi-product firms and product quality

We examine the global operations of multi-product firms. We present a flexible heterogeneous-firm trade model with either limited or strong scope for quality differentiation. Using customs data for China during 2002?2006...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Impact of Structural Reforms on Regional Growth: Distance to the Frontier Matters

This paper aims to understand the impact of nation-wide structural policies on the productivity growth of OECD regions. In particular we explore how this impact varies with the productivity gap of regions with their coun...Read more...

CentrePiece article

A shortage of nurses?

The government?s Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has reluctantly recommended that nurses remain on the `shortage occupation list?, while criticising the health sector for failing to maintain a sufficient supply of UK ...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Taking Care of the Budget? Practice-level Outcomes during Commissioning Reforms in England

I investigate whether vesting budgets with doctors impacts treatment decisions and patients outcomes by exploiting the transitional phase of major recent health care reforms in England that passed budgets to consortia of...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

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

Health Care: Evidence on the Impact of Increased Spending and Patient Choice

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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...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Trade Liberalisation Does Not Always Raise Wage Premia: Evidence from Ugandan Districts

The process of economic integration over the past two decades has been accompanied by an expanding income wedge between skilled and unskilled workers in many developing countries. This was also the case for Ugandan wage ...Read more...

CEP report

How mental illness loses out in the NHS a report by the Centre for Economic Performance's Mental Health Policy Group

Mental illness accounts for a massive share of the total burden of disease. Even when we include the burden of premature death mental illness accounts for 23% of the total burden of disease. Yet, despite the existence of...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A Map of Mental Health

This paper provides a comprehensive picture of mental health services in England, including staffing and expenditure, and the number of people in need and the number treated. Historically, this information has been split...Read more...

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...

CEP discussion paper

Trade, Technology Adoption and Wage Inequalities: Theory and Evidence

This paper develops a model of trade that features heterogeneous firms, technology choice and different types of skilled labor in a general equilibrium framework. Its main contribution is to explain the impact of trade i...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Pension Problems and Reforms in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania

Pension systems and, as ratios of GDP, pension expenditures show large variation among countries. This variation reflects, above all, demographic factors and differences in the level of insurance protection, the latter t...Read more...