Results

Blog

LSE British Politics:

Without radical planning reform, Burnham cannot build the houses he's promising

Governments keep promising to build more houses, and keep failing to do so. Now, Andy Burnham has upped the challenge by promising not just more houses, but specifically more council houses since World War II. Paul Chesh...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics:

Can Manchesterism really be a blueprint for national growth?

As Andy Burnham takes over as Prime Minister, Manchesterism is increasingly discussed as a blueprint for the rest of the country. But Aadya Bahl argues that much of the success of Greater Manchester depended on local con...Read more...

Blog

Bloomberg Trumponomics (podcast):

Are We Being Priced Out of Happiness?

Americans are spending less time with friends, nights out are getting more expensive and even major sporting events are becoming harder to afford. Stephanie Flanders speaks with Bloomberg reporter Ben Steverman and econo...Read more...

Blog

LSE British politics:

Burnham's Manchesterism can help universities drive local growth

Andy Burnham recently acknowledged that UK universities are capable of driving innovation and economic growth. But their ability to do so is being undermined by a higher education funding crisis. Manchesterism, with its ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Impact:

Prevention loses budget battles - wellbeing economics can change the maths

From extreme heat to heavy rains, governments are increasingly faced with the need to be prepared for the impacts of climate change. Christian Krekel and Sara MacLennan outline how wellbeing economics can make a compelli...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics:

Post-Brexit trade policy hit supply chains and workers

After Brexit, firms in the UK found their supply chains disrupted. Holger Breinlich, Elsa Leromain and Martina Magli show that subsequent declines in trade led to less employment and lower pay for workers - with firms im...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Take-away findings from food delivery apps

Do delivery apps reduce or enhance the attraction of cities?...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Remembering our friend and colleague David Metcalf

A widely-admired economist whose work on labour markets led to a number of high-profile roles in public life...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Informing industrial strategy for clean technologies

Spillovers from innovation can boost regional growth...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Brexit has been an economic failure: here?s the evidence

Putting up trade barriers has made the UK poorer...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Brexit shows how firms react when restrictions are placed on the way they reach customers

Brexit changed how British firms could sell services in the European Union. By studying how companies reacted, Holger Breinlich and Martina Magli show that many implemented workarounds, such as setting up affiliates abro...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics:

Brexit has been an economic failure

Putting up trade barriers, higher import prices and uncertainty have made the UK poorer. Thomas Sampson provides the evidence showing how Brexit has negatively affected the UK's economy....Read more...

Blog

Project Syndicate:

The Mismeasurement of Europe's Productivity

The Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman uses the wrong metric - purchasing power parity - to make the case that Europe is not lagging far behind the US in terms of productivity. The right metric shows that the gap is g...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Counting the costs: a quantitative assessment of Brexit?s effect on UK regional economies

This paper examines the implications of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) using a dynamic spatial general equilibrium model. Unlike previous studies that primarily projected potential impacts of Brexit base...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Mind the break-up: when policy disrupts firms' supply chains

This paper examines how policy-induced supply-chain shocks affect firms? performances, using the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) as a source of exogenous variation. Using UK microdata on firm-level goods and ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Should we stay or should we go? Firms? decision on services mode of supply

Services account for one-third of global trade, yet little is known about the impact of trade restrictions on services trade. To make progress in this area, it is crucial to understand through which modes services are tr...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics:

A more productive economy is being delivered under this Labour government

The Labour government set raising economic growth as its central target while in power. The new figures published by the Office for National Statistics suggest that the economy is doing a lot better than expected. John V...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

How UK firms are responding to the war in Iran: Early evidence from the Decision Maker Panel

The conflict in the Middle East has pushed energy prices sharply higher, but the implications for UK inflation will depend on the scale and duration of the shock as well as its propagation through firms' costs, prices, m...Read more...

Blog

What works centre for local economic grwoth:

Estimating Graduate Supply: A Pathway Approach to Local Skills Data

In this guest blog, Aadya Bahl talks about the analysis done for the CEP report Hive of talent: what would it take to raise skills and productivity in Greater Manchester? published last week. For more information on avai...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

An Olympic opportunity

We use a unique natural experiment in which families were randomly selected to live in the Olympic Village, constructed for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, to assess the impact of improved neighbourhood conditions on acad...Read more...

CEP report

Hive of talent: what would it take to raise skills and productivity in Greater Manchester?

Finding enough highly-skilled workers to enable Greater Manchester to make a serious dent in its productivity gap with London will require action that goes beyond skills policy alone, a new report from the Centre for Eco...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal:

Green belts and the inefficient allocation of land

Land is an economic resource, so the efficiency with which it is used is essentially an economic problem. This paper, therefore, approaches the issue from an economic perspective. Having surveyed the economic definitions...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Make immigration boring again

A polarised debate ignores the trade-offs involved, we can do better....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Unpacking the restaurant experience: how food delivery technology favors the affluent urban core

We study how technological innovation has transformed the valuation of consumption services, using the sudden national expansion of food delivery services (FDS) in China as a natural experiment. Using a Bartik-style inst...Read more...

CEP report

Pathways to a productive and inclusive net zero

The transition to net zero can bring economic benefits - improving productivity and living standards while tackling climate change and this collection of briefing papers shows how. Pathways to productive and inclusive ne...Read more...

Blog

IFS Zooms in:

Is the minimum wage costing jobs? (podcast)

Alan Manning joins host Helen Miller and Eduin Latimer, both of the IFS, to unpack what we do and don't know about the minimum wage. They look at the evidence on employment effects, the knock-on impacts on pay compressio...Read more...

CEP report

Road to recovery: Self-employed on the mend?

The eighth LSE-CEP survey of the self-employed shows weekly hours of the self-employed are now seeing some signs of recovery, compared with the last data collection in June 2023. The positive increase in work hours is tr...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gangs of London and public housing

Novel spatial data on London street gangs between 1990 and 2015 are combined with local housing characteristics to produce a newly constructed data source that shows how social housing and its architectural design relate...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

What the price-to-rent ratio reveals about Britain's housing crisis

The consensus that Britain's housing crisis stems from the lack of enough houses being built has received intense criticism lately. Christian Hilber and Andreas Mense analyse the price-to-rent ratio of UK homes and argue...Read more...

Journal article

Regional studies:

Can more housing supply improve affordability? A subnational perspective from Portugal

We investigate the impact of housing supply on affordability in rapidly appreciating subnational markets in Portugal. Our spatial econometric model confirms a negative relation between housing stock and prices, yet predi...Read more...

Blog

The Lowdown from Nick Cohen (podcast):

Exploding the myths of immigration

Nick Cohen and Professor Alan Manning - economist and one of the country's leading experts on immigration - discuss the impact of immigration on Western democracies, including its role in recent and upcoming elections, a...Read more...

Book

Why Immigration Policy Is Hard: And How to Make It Better
An indispensable resource for informed debate on one of the most charged subjects in public life today.

Immigration policy is hard, involving difficult decisions and trade-offs. But, as Alan Manning - former chair of the UK's Migration Advisory Committee - makes clear, this doesn't mean that we can't do much better. We sh...Read more...

Blog

The Conversation:

Could new tenants' rights usher in rent controls? Here's why that wouldn't necessarily be a positive

The new Renters' Rights Act introduces provisions to protect tenants in England against rent increases. While the UK government says it "does not support the introduction of rent controls", the act does allow tenants to ...Read more...

Blog

The Conversation:

How new renters' rights could drive landlords out of the market

Many elements of the renters' rights bill are likely to improve the lives of renters without harming landlords. But some of the improvements for tenants will make being a landlord more difficult or even, for some, undesi...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

What policies could kick-start economic growth in the UK?

For two decades, the UK economy has seen weak growth, driven by low business investment, inadequate market dynamism and persistent policy instability. These failures shape the daily reality of households whose living sta...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Deglobalisation in disguise?

Brexit means that UK exporters of services now face more red tape and fewer opportunities....Read more...

Chapter

Labour markets and the future of work

in The London Consensus

New technologies are causing a restructuring of labour markets in many countries. While much has been written on how these technologies may destroy jobs, this chapter argues that they do not threaten the end of work but ...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Structured wellbeing curriculum in schools

Some argue that school is a means to an end, and time spent in lessons may be unpleasant, but it helps these children in the future. The question is 'to what end'. Are school years something which have to be tolerated i...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Council tax is an unfair mess - here's a system that could work better

The consensus says that it's a bad tax, yet politicians have been shying away from reforming council tax for decades. Paul Cheshire offers an alternative that could be fairer and act as the wealth tax that many are calli...Read more...

External report

Policy Landscape 2025:

Housing (chapter)

As Parliament returns from its summer recess, the Resolution Foundation and UK in a Changing Europe have partnered to produce the Policy Landscape 2025 report - a series of evidence-led, research-based assessments of the...Read more...

Blog

What works centre for local economic growth:

Understanding the drivers of productivity: Skills

This blog is the first in our new series on the drivers of productivity. The drivers of productivity include skills, investment, innovation, enterprise and competition, and land. This blog focuses on skills, and compleme...Read more...

Blog

What works centre for local economic growth:

Can expanding airports help local growth take off?

August means airports, and now that air travel has rebounded from the lows during the Covid-19 pandemic to reach levels where globally there are more flights than ever, airports face bigger and bigger tests on their capa...Read more...

Blog

The Conversation:

Housebuyers hate stamp duty. Why hasn't it been reformed before now?

For years, academic economists have argued that council tax and stamp duty are deeply flawed. But now the UK government is said to be considering a change to stamp duty so that it is only paid on houses selling for more ...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Britain is falling behind the US, and productivity is largely to blame

The gap in living standards between the UK and US has widened sharply in recent years. Aadya Bahl argues that reversing this trend means confronting the UK's deep-rooted productivity and investment challenges....Read more...

Blog

LSE Inequalities:

How does housing affect educational outcomes? Evidence from the UK's Right to Buy scheme

Right-to-Buy gave tenants of local authority owned 'council' houses the chance to own their home. The policy, which began in 1980, has been criticised for increasing inequality in the housing market, but Richard Disney a...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

The impact of the 2025 US tariff announcements on UK firms

In the first half of 2025, the US and some of its trading partners announced significant changes to import tariffs. This column uses newly designed questions to study the impact of these changes on UK firms and to assess...Read more...

Blog

UK in a Changing Europe:

Deglobalisation in disguise?

Shania Bhalotia, Swati Dhingra and Danyal Arnold explain their study on the effect of Brexit on the UK's ability to export services abroad. They argue that exporters now face higher trade costs, more red tape and fewer o...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

The UK's new industrial strategy: what does it mean for Manchester?

To succeed, the industrial strategy needs to build strong local ecosystems in places where the eight priority sectors can thrive. The example of Greater Manchester shows why investment must be joined-up and focused on ma...Read more...

Blog

LSE British politics and policy:

Universities are engines of growth and must be backed by policy

The Industrial Strategy identifies growth-driving sectors that will require a highly-skilled workforce. Higher education will be a key to unlocking this ambition. But as universities aim to recruit the best talent from a...Read more...

Blog

What works centre for local economic growth:

Multiplying the benefits of Local Growth Plans

Last month the government published new guidance for Mayoral Strategic Authorities on Local Growth Plans. These are a key foundation of the new Industrial Strategy and the government's ambitions for devolution, as well a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Deglobalisation in disguise? Brexit barriers and trade in services

Deglobalisation policies promote the vision that pulling back from economic integration can help correct international imbalances and reposition national economies for renewed prosperity. A core vision of Brexit was to t...Read more...

CentrePiece article

in brief... How the Trump tariffs affect UK firms

How should UK exporters react to the tariffs imposed by President Trump? While some may start planning to increase production in the United States to avoid the tax, others whose US customers are less price-sensitive may ...Read more...

Blog

Centre for Cities:

A review of the Green Book review

While correctly rejecting criticisms that existing guidance is biased, the latest Green Book review suggests changes that should improve appraisal and decision making....Read more...

Government consultation

Treasury Committee: National Wealth Fund

Professor Neil Lee gives evidence to the Commons Treasury Committee. The committee is asking whether the National Wealth Fund has the right tools and backing to drive meaningful economic growth...Read more...

External report

A joined-up approach to UK skills policy

It is generally accepted that skills are a key driver of economic productivity and economic dynamism. They are a means by which individuals and communities can become resilient to social and economic change and are a key...Read more...

Government consultation

Treasury Committee: Bank of England Monetary Policy Reports

Swati Dhingra gave oral evidence to the Treasury committee....Read more...

Blog

Academy of Social Sciences:

Closing the UK's productivity gap requires targeted investment

Aadya Bahl and Henry Overman discuss the difficult but essential decisions the UK Government must make to target investment strategically so that we can close the country's productivity gap and create economic growth. In...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Rethinking public investment in Greater Manchester's regeneration

Manchester United's proposed new stadium comes with a hefty price tag, and uncertainty over who will pay for it. Aadya Bahl argues that public funding for such projects might compete with Greater Manchester's broader eco...Read more...

Blog

Financial Times:

How should central banks respond to US tariffs? (Podcast)

US tariffs have sent financial markets into a frenzy in recent weeks, but how much should central bankers be taking trade into account when setting monetary policy? To find out, Soumaya Keynes sits down with Bank of Engl...Read more...

Blog

LSE Politics and Policy:

Why the social care visa had to go

One of the changes to the UK work migration regime announced in this week's White Paper was that care workers could no longer be hired directly from abroad. To some this return to the pre-2021 system was an act of econom...Read more...

Government consultation

Science, Innovation and Technology Committee - Innovation, growth and the regions

Neil Lee gave evidence to the science, innovation and technology committee about the UK's innovation ecosystem and how it compares to other countries....Read more...

Government consultation

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Written evidence submitted by Paul Cheshire to the planning and infrastructure bill committee...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

How the Trump tariffs affect UK firms

How should UK exporters react to the tariffs imposed by President Trump? Some manufacturers may decide to increase production in the US, but those with loyal US consumers who are relatively insensitive to price changes m...Read more...

Blog

LSE Politics and Policy:

How will US tariffs affect the UK economy?

In this interview with Alexis Papazoglou, Thomas Sampson explains what the US tariffs mean for the UK economy and answers questions on the effects of Brexit on the UK's ability to negotiate the tariffs, as well as on wha...Read more...

Blog

LSE Politics and Policy:

How emigration shapes the diffusion of new technologies

A central driver of economic growth is new technology. Gaia Dossi and Davide Coluccia show how migrants from Britain to the US in the late 19th and early 20th century not only brought new ideas with them but helped US in...Read more...

Blog

The ECB Blog:

AI can boost productivity - if firms use it

We constantly hear of exciting new ways AI tools can help to tackle economic problems and the productivity gains they bring. However, benefits can only materialize when firms actually use AI....Read more...

Blog

LSE Politics and Policy:

Better unemployment benefits could boost productivity and growth

The UK's job seeker's allowance for those who lose their job is much lower than the OECD average. Aadya Bahl argues that improving unemployment support is key not just for protecting workers but also for unlocking econom...Read more...

Journal article

Economic Geography:

Don?t shoot the pianist: creative firms, workers, and neighbourhood gentrification

We examine links between creative activity and gentrification at the neighbourhood level. These dynamics are both complex and important to understand. Artists may help `upgrade? inexpensive neighbourhoods before being di...Read more...

Blog

Academy of Social Sciences:

Policies to promote productivity and wage growth for less educated workers

In this piece, Professor Richard Blundell FAcSS, Professor Rachel Griffith FAcSS and Professor Sally McNally explore how improving educational outcomes for children growing up in deprivation, including social skills in t...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Firm climate investment: a glass half-full

We analyse the importance of climate-related investment using a large economy-wide survey of UK firms. Over half of firms expect climate change to have a positive impact on their investment in the medium term, with aroun...Read more...

Blog

What works centre for local economic growth:

Thinking through multipliers: small numbers, big value

Last week we held the second in our current series of breakfast briefing webinars - Thinking through multipliers: Learning from BBC relocation. The event focused on what multipliers are and why local growth policymakers ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

How Brexit affected the trade of UK firms

The UK left the EU?s single market and customs union at the start of 2021, entering into the Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the EU. Rebecca Freeman, Marco Garofalo, Enrico Longoni, Kalina Manova, Rebecca Mari, Thom...Read more...

CentrePiece article

in brief... Successful caps on fees disprove the idea that it?s unwise to meddle with free markets

Jan David Bakker and Nikhil Datta show how the success of a reform of letting agents? fees was partly due to their hidden nature....Read more...

Blog

What works centre for local economic growth:

Effective devolution: why evidence and evaluation are key to success

Last week we held the first in our latest series of breakfast briefing webinars. This event focused on how local governments can prepare themselves to make the most of the devolution of local growth policy. Our remaining...Read more...

CEP report

Minimum wage effects: adjustment through labour market dynamics and alternative work arrangements

This report investigates the UK's 2016 National Living Wage (NLW) introduction, focusing on firm adjustment through labour market transitions and job contract amendments. The NLW boosted worker wages, and whilst there wa...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Judge dread: Court severity, repossession risk and demand in mortgage and housing markets

We study the impact of borrower protection on mortgage and housing demand using variation in the likelihood that houses are repossessed coming from heterogeneity in preferences of local judges. We develop a framework tha...Read more...

Blog

LSE Politics and Policy:

Trump's tariffs will put post-Brexit trade policy to the test

With Donald Trump's inauguration imminent, there are questions over the potential consequences of one of his signature policies: tariffs. While during the first Trump administration the UK wasn't too affected by the impo...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

Do cities and regions gain from public sector relocation?

Moving public agencies out of London was a major plank of the levelling-up agenda. The effects on local economies seem smaller than hoped - and it's important to compare them with those of other tools of regional policy:...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

How Brexit affected the trade of UK firms

The UK left the EU's single market and customs union at the start of 2021, entering unto the Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the EU. Rebecca Freeman, Marco Garofalo, Enrico Longoni, Kalina Manova, Rebecca Mari, Thom...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Deep integration and trade: UK firms in the wake of Brexit

How does dismantling deep integration affect international trade? This paper studies the consequences of economic disintegration by estimating the impact of Brexit on goods trade by UK firms. The UK's exit from the EU's ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Human capital from childhood exposure to homeownership: evidence from Right-to-Buy

"Right to Buy" (RTB) was a large-scale UK housing policy whereby incumbent tenants in public housing could buy their properties at heavily subsidised prices. The policy increased the national homeownership rate by over 1...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Measuring quality of life under spatial frictions

Using a quantitative spatial model as a data-generating process, we explore how spatial frictions affect the measurement of quality of life. We find that under a canonical parameterization, mobility frictions - generated...Read more...

Government consultation

Invest 2035: the UK's modern industrial strategy

This document presents the submission made in response to the consultation on "Invest 2035: the UK's modern industrial strategy." The consultation was conducted by the Department for Business and Trade from 14 October 20...Read more...

Blog

The Conversation:

Successful caps on English letting agents' fees disprove the idea that it's unwise to meddle with free markets

Five years ago, the UK government enacted the first legislation regulating prices in the English rental market since the 1960s. The Tenant Fees Act 2019 didn't interfere with what landlords can charge tenants in rent, bu...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Changes to firms' service delivery post-Brexit

Services can be supplied through cross-border trade, consumption abroad, commercial presence, and the presence of a natural person. The choice of delivery mode and the extent to which service traders can switch between m...Read more...

Government consultation

Scottish parliament: Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Christian Hilber gives evidence to the Housing inquiry....Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

The productivity boom in the British car industry benefited workers, with a caveat

Productivity growth can play an important role in raising wages. The UK car industry experienced fast productivity growth over the past 40 years, and by the 2010s car workers were earning about 37 per cent more than the ...Read more...

Blog

What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth:

Budgeting for evaluation

In the budget last week, the government set out increased funding for public services and investment. The gamble is that increased public spending can successfully spur the growth needed to pay for it down the line. Impa...Read more...

Blog

The local economic development podcast:

Spatial rebalancing with Henry Overman - Econ 101 for local growth

Can 'Economics 101' and radical incrementalism reshape local economic development? David and Mike explore this and more with Professor Henry Overman. Tune in for a deep dive into practical economic strategies and their i...Read more...

Blog

VOX EU:

The housing consumption channel of mortgage demand

Many housing markets have experienced a dramatic rise in house prices and mortgage debt over recent decades that has outpaced average income growth. Increased wealth and increased collateral values have been cited as pos...Read more...

CentrePiece article

AI and climate action: how UK firms are responding

Are businesses in the UK embracing artificial intelligence? And what are they doing to meet net-zero targets? Juliana Oliveira-Cunha, Bruno Serra-Lorenzo and Anna Valero report on how employers believe the two big upheav...Read more...

Government consultation

Industry and Regulators Committee

The UK is a service-led economy, with strengths in sectors such as financial and business services, the creative and cultural industries, and life sciences, which together employ 20% of the workforce. To build on these s...Read more...

Blog

What works Centre for Local Economic Growth:

What might plans for a new industrial strategy mean for local growth?

On Monday, the Government published their green paper for a new national industrial strategy. This sets out the broad direction of their plan for industrial strategy and the thinking behind it, before the full strategy w...Read more...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

The educational choices of British 16-year-olds matter for the economy

The choices that British 16-year-olds are making in the next few weeks about their future studies matter not just for them and their families but also for the nation's economy. Britain needs a workforce with graduate-le...Read more...

Blog

LSE Politics and Policy:

Labour's planning reforms - how to make housing targets work

Labour promised serious reforms to the planning system while in opposition. What it has proposed now that it's in Government, including reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework, is very far from a fundamental re...Read more...