Results

Blog

LSE British Politics:

Does falling migration spell trouble for the Budget?

Migration rates to the UK are falling. That might sound politically advantageous for a government that is trying to show it has immigration under control, but some argue that it could in fact spell economic trouble for t...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

Why are good jobs concentrated in certain places?

Good jobs exist everywhere in the UK - but the highest-paying roles remain heavily concentrated in London and the South East, and a small number of cities. Structural change has reinforced these patterns, raising difficu...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Quantifying non-tariff barriers: Brexit, input sourcing and firm performance

How successful is European integration in removing non-tariff trade barriers? We study how Brexit affected UK firms' input sourcing and sales. The post-Brexit Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) reduced sales and input...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The labour market dynamics of households: eyes down for a full house

Little is known about the dynamic factors that shape movements in household labour market stocks. Expanding on the literature used to analyse individual labour market flows, we apply and extend dynamic techniques to the ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Inequalities:

AI and labour market inequalities: Three starting points for discussion

One thing experts on 'the future of work' agree on is that disruptions driven by AI require us to completely rethink of the role of government in the labour market. Sir Christopher Pissarides and Kirsten Sehnbruch outlin...Read more...

CEP report

Skills for growth: what the UK can learn from international approaches for incentivising employer-based training

This report reviews international evidence on approaches to increasing employer investment in training, focusing on three broad models: coordination between employers and training providers; sector-based employment and t...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Is data privacy a losing game? Evidence from Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy

We study the impact of Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy, which requires apps to obtain explicit user permission before cross-app tracking, on the mobile gaming industry. Using SensorTower US data on the top...Read more...

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...

CEP discussion paper

Employer market power: models and methods

It is now widely recognized that employers hold some wage-setting power over workers, and several recent reviews cover the resulting surge of research on monopsony. We take a high-level view, introducing the idea of the ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Industrial Economics:

Asymmetric pass-through and competition

We study the retail price pass-through of four major tax changes in petroleum products using daily pricing data from gas stations on small Greek islands. We find that (i) the pass-through of the tax hikes is five times h...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

CEP wellbeing coefficient database

Wellbeing cost-benefit analysis requires credible estimates of how much specific life circumstances change subjective wellbeing. This paper documents and contextualises a compendium of 123 such estimates, drawn from 19 d...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

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...

Journal article

Review of Economics and Statistics:

Managing export complexity: the role of service outsourcing

As manufacturing firms expand globally, business services such as advertising and legal support become essential for entering new markets. Exploiting exogenous demand shocks, we document that French manufacturers increas...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...

Chapter

Advancing gender equality in parenting: the remaining challenge

in The Routledge International Handbook of Time Use Themes and Applications

The roles of men and women in the labour market have been converging in recent decades, but studies have shown that women are devoting more time to childcare, widening the gender gap in this area. Using data from the UK ...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...

Journal article

Journal of Property Investment and Finance:

Real estate insights: sweetening the dog's breakfast that is British property taxes

Purpose - This study aims to stimulate debate on the long overdue strategic reform of property taxes. Design/methodology/approach - This study adopts an approach combining a systematic literature review with economic ana...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

Economica:

Defining the geographical level of competition: a taxonomy of industry tradability

The paper develops a taxonomy of industry tradability to define the geographical level at which competition takes place. First, it creates a novel dataset that combines production and international trade data for both go...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Green gains from connectivity: highway expansion and forest quality

Roads are often linked to deforestation in frontier settings, but their effects in managed forests are less well understood. We investigate the intensive-margin response of forest outcomes to roads using China?s 2000?201...Read more...

Journal article

Oxford Review of Economic Policy:

A new model of parental time investments: a paradigm shift for addressing gender inequality in the labour market

This paper introduces a new framework for understanding the persistence of the motherhood penalty by emphasizing the role of on-call care. Using a pseudo-panel event study based on the 2003?22 American Time Use Survey (A...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 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...

CEP discussion paper

What is the "right" geographic market definition?

This paper examines the "right" geographic definition of relevant markets by analyzing how excise tax pass-through varies with local competition in the retail gasoline market of a large metropolitan city. Using a natural...Read more...

Journal article

International Journal of Industrial Organization:

What is the "right" geographic market definition?

This paper examines the "right" geographic definition of relevant markets by analyzing how excise tax pass-through varies with local competition in the retail gasoline market of a large metropolitan city. Using a natural...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

A wartime labor market: the case of Ukraine

Wars disrupt labor markets, yet systematic evidence on how markets for labor services operate during conflicts is almost entirely absent. Ukraine is a rare exception: despite the full-scale Russian invasion, timely data ...Read more...

Blog

ADR UK:

Understanding labour markets through administrative data: A workshop of collaborating minds

This blog is by ADR UK Research Fellow Guglielmo Ventura, who reflects on a recent workshop hosted at the LSE Centre for Economic Performance. The event brought together leading academic and policy voices to explore how ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Public Economics:

The impact of subjective school ratings on principal compensation and turnover

Prior research has established that objective, test-score-based school accountability measures impact school leaders. Subjective evaluations, on the other hand, can provide a more nuanced assessment of school quality. Th...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...

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

Cultural exception?

Why book publishing contradicts conventional wisdom about competition....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...

Journal article

The Energy Journal:

Natural gas vehicles: consequences for fuel markets and the environment

Policies to adopt cleaner fuels have become increasingly important, but their impacts on incumbent fuel prices and resulting greenhouse gas emissions remain unclear. We use a panel dataset on weekly prices at the gas sta...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...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization:

Recurring labour market shocks and stated and revealed preferences for redistribution

Evidence on the relationship between employment shocks and preferences for redistribution is mixed - on stated outcomes - and sparse - on revealed ones. In an incentivized survey of US workers, we measure the relationshi...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...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Tickets to the global market: first US patent award and Chinese firm exports

We investigate how international patent activity enables firms from emerging economies to thrive in the global marketplace. We match Chinese customs data to US patent records, and leverage the quasi-random assignment of ...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...

Journal article

Journal of Labor Economics:

Technological change and domestic outsourcing

Domestic outsourcing has grown substantially in developed countries over the past two decades. This paper addresses the question of the technological drivers of this phenomenon by studying the impact of the staggered dif...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

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...

Journal article

Economics Letters:

Do larger firms exert more market power? Markups and markdowns along the size distribution

Combining financial statements with firm-level product prices, we find that larger firms exhibit lower markups, although they are overcompensated by substantially higher wage markdowns. We explain our divergence from pri...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...

CentrePiece article

The lasting impact of 9/11 on Muslim integration in America

Understanding the long-term social impact of historical events provides insights into current global debates on immigration, integration and Islamophobia. In a study of the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Shadi Farahza...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The price of power: why rising markups hurt innovation and widen inequality

Over the past four decades, the United States has seen rising market power, slowing productivity growth and deepening wealth inequality. Giammario Impullitti and Pontus Rendahl explore how declining competition may be th...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...

CEP discussion paper

Public sector performance disclosure: salary and career outcomes for top managers and employees

Public sector organizations around the world are held to account on the basis of objective measures of performance. This paper investigates, for the first time, the impact of subjective school inspection ratings on labor...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 Europp:

Cultural exception? Why regulating the book market contradicts conventional wisdom about competition

Fixing retail book prices is a common policy in Europe, but how does preventing competition affect booksellers and buyers? Christos Genakos, Lorien Sabatino and Tommaso Valletti find that when the ability to offer custom...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

Lords Home-based working committee

Nick Bloom gave evidence to the home-based working committee about research into the impact of working from home on companies' recruitment, retention and productivity....Read more...

Government consultation

Lords Home-based working committee

This submission points out that remote and hybrid working models offer the UK a chance to redesign its labour market around principles of inclusion, flexibility, and well-being. However, as current evidence shows, these ...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...

CEP discussion paper

Minimum wages and low wage workers: compliance as non-employment margin

This paper examines the impact of a substantial minimum wage increase in Uruguay - a middle-income developing economy - on wages and employment. Using administrative data and a difference-in-differences approach, we anal...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...

Government consultation

Lords Home-based working committee

This submission quotes research findings from a joint project between Alessandra Fenizia at George Washington University and Tom Kirchmaier at CEP, which finds WFH increases productivity by 12%. These productivity gains ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Cultural exception? The impact of price regulation on prices and variety in the market for books

Fixed book price (FBP) agreements are a form of resale price maintenance applied to books in various countries. FBP restricts retail price competition with the aim of promoting book production variety. Yet, despite its p...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...

Blog

LSE USA Politics and Policy:

The lasting impact of 9/11 on Muslim integration in America

With ongoing global debates on immigration, integration, and rising Islamophobia, understanding the long-term social impacts of historical events is more important than ever. Shadi Farahzadi studies the effects of the 9/...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...