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This month's CentrePiece cover story looks at how competition from China shaped European solar firms.
New research finds that Brexit caused a sharp trade drop, especially for small firms, cutting UK exports by 6.4% and imports by 3.1%.
How the UK's 2016 National Living Wage influenced the labour market.
Lee Elliot Major writes about the need for new financial arrangements for universities to uphold the principle that a university education should be accessible to all. ... Read more...
21 January 2025
John Van Reenen has spent his professional lifetime probing the weak spots of the UK economy. Now he is based in an office next to Reeves's at the Treasury, with his three fellow advisers. One Labour source says they str... Read more...
17 January 2025
Congratulations to Almudena Sevilla, professor of economics and public policy in LSE’s Department of Social Policy, and associate of the Centre for Economic Performance who has been recognised in the New Year's Hon... Read more...
06 January 2025
Research from the Centre for Economic Performance, a think tank based at the London School of Economics, said Brexit led to a 6.4 per cent drop in the UK's global exports. ... Read more...
18 December 2024
Brexit has hit UK trade less than many forecasters predicted thanks to larger companies adapting to red tape at the border, according to research by the London School of Economics. Researchers estimated UK worldwide good... Read more...
The damage from Brexit to trade links with the EU cost the UK £27bn in the first two years, but the overall impact was more limited than forecasters first estimated, according to the most comprehensive review of th... Read more...
Henry Overman OBE, professor of economic geography at LSE and CEP research director, has been appointed to the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council, it was announced today. Professor Overman is one of 16 members of the ... Read more...
17 December 2024
The Port Talbot steel works is closing its last remaining blast furnace, delivering a shattering blow to the economy and society of a South Wales town where employment and wages were once so strong it became known as Tre... Read more...
15 September 2024
Congratulations to Daniel Chandler who has been awarded the 2024 Voltaire Lecture Medal for his work on how to create a fair society. Chandler, research director of the LSE’s Programme on Cohesive Capitalism and a... Read more...
12 September 2024
Stephen Machin, professor of economics at LSE and CEP director, has been appointed to the newly-created Labour Market Advisory Board, it was announced today. Professor Machin is one of eight board members appointed by w... Read more...
10 September 2024
The 'shock' caused by restrictions introduced during the pandemic in 2020 could take 'seven years to erode', warn Stephen Gibbons, Sandra McNally and Piero Montebruno. ... Read more...
06 September 2024
The average rate of school absences not caused by Covid-19 self-isolation doubled after the pandemic, research by Stephen Gibbons, Sandra McNally and Piero Montebruno has found. ... Read more...
Spending extra cash on mental health services would boost economic growth and improve the nation’s wellbeing more than building new roads, according to an academic analysis from the London School of Economics. Rich... Read more...
03 September 2024
Forcing workers to retire later would free up funding for policing and mental health services and "reduce misery" in Britain, a report co-authored by Richard Layard and published by the London School of Economics has sai... Read more...
Academics have an opportunity to exert more influence in policymaking with demand for robust evidence on the rise, according to Richard Layard, co-author of a report that seeks a "radical change in the government's spend... Read more...
Spending money on mental health support teams in schools saves more money than it costs within two years, researchers from the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance have said. Lord Layard, who led t... Read more...
Richard Layard writes that Labour must apply the wellbeing-to-cost test to every departmental proposal in the spending review. ... Read more...
A well-trained workforce is essential to the economy, but a shortage of alternatives to university means Britain's young people are falling behind. Lord Richard Layard talks about a fundamental injustice in Britain's edu... Read more...
20 August 2024
Ucas is reforming personal statements from next year. Lee Elliot Major, a professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, said he believed the reform was a "significant step in making the university admissions ... Read more...
18 July 2024
John Van Reenen, an innovation expert and former Downing Street policy adviser under Tony Blair’s New Labour government, will head the body, which is expected to sit within the heart of the Treasury. Sources close ... Read more...
11 July 2024
From ending zero-hours contracts to boosting benefits, Britain's new government wants to shift power back to staff. Stephen Machin, Alan Manning and Jonathan Wadsworth explain how the power balance stands now. ... Read more...
07 July 2024
Congratulations to Henry Overman, Professor of Economic Geography and Research Director of the Centre for Economic Performance, who has been recognised in the King's Birthday Honours List 2024. Professor Overman has bee... Read more...
17 June 2024
Daniel Chandler writes that to address the vast inequalities in the United States, a fundamental rethink of economic institutions and the values that guide them is needed. ... Read more...
14 May 2024
Lee Elliot Major outlines how the learning loss suffered by pupils during Covid-19 and the resulting decline in social mobility could be the most enduring legacy of the pandemic, explaining why policies that help level t... Read more...
24 April 2024
Lee Elliot Major's research predicts a steady decline in GCSE results of key subjects until 2030, attributing it to the failure to address the academic and social legacies of school closures during the pandemic. ... Read more...
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People like to live in certain places, even when higher wages are on offer elsewhere. Gabriel Ahlfeldt, Fabian Bald, Duncan Roth and Tobias Seidel show that once you take into account people's preferences, large cities o... Read more...
Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt, Fabian Bald, Duncan Roth and Tobias Seidel
24 February 2025
We examine the labor market consequences of global supply chain disruptions. Specifically, we consider a temporary increase in international trade costs similar to the one observed during the COVID-19 pandemic and analyz... Read more...
Mauricio Ulate, Jose P Vasquez and Roman D. Zarate
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...
Shadi Farahzadi
21 February 2025
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...
Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Prachi Srivastava, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov
20 February 2025
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...
Will Brett-Harding
Innovators are most likely to be men from privileged backgrounds. Xavier Jaravel argues that democratisation and widening of access to innovative careers worldwide is key to boosting long-term growth and addressing today... Read more...
Xavier Jaravel
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...
Rebecca Freeman, Marco Garofalo, Enrico Longoni, Kalina Manova, Rebecca Mari, Thomas Prayer and Thomas Sampson
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...
Jan David Bakker and Nikhil Datta
Fast productivity growth in the UK car industry led to staff in the sector earning about 37% more than the average manufacturing employee by the 2010s. But Andreas Teichgraeber and Tim Obermeier show that while wages wen... Read more...
Tim Obermeier and Andreas Teichgraeber
Following an LSE event discussing the legacy of Daniel Kahneman (5 March 1934 to 27 March 2024), Barbara Tversky remembers him and his work.... Read more...
Barbara Tversky
The late Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman had a long association with CEP. At an LSE event, Richard Layard, Gillian Tett and Paul Dolan discussed how his work influenced psychology, economics and society – and their experi... Read more...
Paul Dolan, Richard Layard, Gillian Tett and Helen Ward
Online consultations with doctors are convenient for patients and produce similar health outcomes to in-person visits. But research by Amanda Dahlstrand, Nestor Le Nestour and Guy Michaels finds that deciding which patie... Read more...
Amanda Dahlstrand, Nestor Le Nestour and Guy Michaels
Large language models can conduct interviews at speed and at scale. Friedrich Geiecke and Xavier Jaravel present a new open source platform to support this innovative form of qualitative research.... Read more...
Friedrich Geiecke and Xavier Jaravel
Should policymakers protect European firms by restricting imports of solar technology from China? Pia Andres finds that Chinese competition has resulted in many European firms going out of business, but it has also promp... Read more...
Pia Andres
Breakthrough innovations occurred when women obtained the right to reap economic rewards from their inventions. Ruveyda Nur Gozen shows how such inclusive policies are a critical driver of economic growth.... Read more...
Ruveyda Nur Gozen
We investigate the causal relationship between inventor migration and regional innovation in the context of the large-scale migration shock from East to West Germany between World War II and the construction of the Berli... Read more...
Antonin Bergeaud, Max Deter, Maria Greve and Michael Wyrwich
19 February 2025
Professor Lee Elliot Major joins Will Hutton to discuss the decline of social mobility in the UK and advocates for a broader understanding of systemic barriers, including arguing for a new approach towards language to im... Read more...
Lee Elliot Major
Large-scale land acquisitions are a key component of agricultural foreign direct investment. In 2023 alone, nearly 6% of the world's arable land was acquired globally. This paper examines their impact on agricultural pro... Read more...
Tommaso Sonno and Davide Zufacchi
17 February 2025
Students' choice of which university and programme to apply to isn't a simple financial decision. There's more at stake in the decision than finance and information gaps. Behavioural constraints play an important role. C... Read more...
Camille Terrier
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...
13 February 2025
Labour's plans for growth include the creation of a National Wealth Fund. A closer look at the proposals reveals that this is not like other Sovereign Wealth Funds, but is in fact more like a Green Investment Bank, meant... Read more...
Cassandra Chong and Neil Lee
12 February 2025
In recent decades, the United States has experienced a notable rise in markups, a slowdown in productivity growth, and an increase in wealth inequality. We present a framework that unifies these trends into a common driv... Read more...
Giammario Impullitti and Pontus Rendahl
People hate wasting time commuting. But translating that into a monetary value to help government policy isn't that straightforward. Christian Krekel, George MacKerron and Iven Stead present a new method to put a value o... Read more...
Christian Krekel, George MacKerron and Iven Stead
07 February 2025
Richard Layard is a British Labour Economist, a member of the House of Lords, and co-editor of the World Happiness Report. Layard highlights the role of life satisfaction and wellbeing in government policy, and the impo... Read more...
Richard Layard
06 February 2025
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...
Pinjas Albagli, Rui Costa and Stephen Machin
04 February 2025
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Shadi Farahzadi (Liverpool/CEP), joint with Patrick Bennet and Jessica Botros
Tuesday 25 February 2025 12:55 - 14:00
Dorothee Hillrichs (LSE)
Wednesday 26 February 2025 11:00 - 12:00
Laura Weiwu (MIT/Berkeley)
Wednesday 26 February 2025 12:30 - 14:00
TBC... Read more...
Stelios Michalopoulos (Brown University)
Monday 03 March 2025 12:00 - 13:30
Gabriel Ulyssea (UCL)
Tuesday 04 March 2025 12:55 - 14:00
Melanie Morten (Stanford University )
Wednesday 05 March 2025 12:30 - 14:00
Romain Ferrali (Aix Marseille School of Economics)
Wednesday 05 March 2025 15:00 - 16:00
Nava Ashraf (LSE)
Thursday 06 March 2025 16:00 - 17:00
Daniele Paserman (Boston University)
Monday 10 March 2025 12:00 - 13:30
Astrid Kunze (Norwegian School of Economics), joint with Gozde Corekcioglu (Ozyegin University) and Marco Francesconi (University of Essex)
Tuesday 11 March 2025 12:55 - 14:00
Economic distortions—such as market power, taxes, credit constraints, etc.— are fundamental in understanding the difference between developing and developed economies. Recent work has documented the pervasive extent of e... Read more...
Federico Huneeus (Duke University), joint with David Atkin, Baptiste Bernadac, Dave Donaldson, Tishara Garg
Wednesday 12 March 2025 12:30 - 14:00
Valentin Bolotnyy (Stanford University)
Thursday 13 March 2025 16:00 - 17:00
Claudia Allende (Stanford)
Monday 17 March 2025 12:00 - 13:30
Kate Smith (LSE), joint with Arjan Lejour, Laurence O’Brien and David Sturrock
Tuesday 18 March 2025 12:55 - 14:00
Laura Boudreau (Columbia Business School), joint with Julia Cajal-Grossi, Canyon Can, and Rocco Macchiavello
Thursday 20 March 2025 13:45 - 15:00
Chiara Costi (University of Luxembourg)
Thursday 20 March 2025 16:00 - 17:00
Garima Sharma (Princeton)
Monday 24 March 2025 12:00 - 13:30
This study explores whether it is possible to affect children’s aspirations and ambitions through a classroom-based intervention. We design and implement ORME, an Online Role-model Mentoring program, which consists of ex... Read more...
Amalia Di Girolamo (Birmingham Business School)
Tuesday 25 March 2025 12:55 - 14:00
Elhanan Helpman (Harvard University)
Wednesday 26 March 2025 12:30 - 14:00
Christian Krekel (CEP, LSE), Ekaterina Oparina (CEP)
Thursday 27 March 2025 16:00 - 17:00
Giuseppe Ippedico (Nottingham), joint with Jacopo Bassetto
Tuesday 01 April 2025 12:55 - 14:00
In the past two decades, about half of the new homes in the United States were built in areas at risk of natural hazards. Why is new residential development being exposed to such risk? I posit that land-use regulations r... Read more...
Augusto Ospital (Toulouse School of Economics)
Thursday 03 April 2025 13:45 - 15:00
Maria Cotofan (CEP)
Thursday 03 April 2025 16:00 - 17:00
Ahmad Lashkaripour (Indiana University)
Friday 04 April 2025 12:30 - 14:00
Katie Bollman (Oregon State University), joint with Benjamin Hansen, Edward Rubin, Garrett Stanford
Wednesday 30 April 2025 15:00 - 16:00
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