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Purpose: The literature mostly investigates the business cycle transmission of the United Kingdom (UK) and France as a part of a wider group (e.g. European Exchange Rate Mechanism or G7), despite their historical links and regional significance. Thus, herein paper aims to analyse the inter-dependence of these economies and how a shock from one of them affects the other for the data since 1978 to 2019. Design/methodology/approach: In this paper, first, preliminary statistics were calculated in order to describe the historical relationship between these countries. The econometric part estimates the vector auto-regression model (VAR) to assess the inter-dependence of the economies. VAR model allows further to inspect the impulse response functions that shows the shock dynamics from one country to another. In order to verify if a shock from one of the economies is important to another, the study uses granger causality test. Findings: The study establishes a strong link between these countries. A business cycle is transmitted significantly between the economies of France and UK, with a single standard deviation shock from France resulting in a long term effect of 0.4% change in gross domestic product (GDP) of UK and 1% vice versa. Additionally changes in GDP of both of the countries significantly Granger-cause change to GDP of the corresponding economy. Originality/value: This is the first empirical study investigating the business cycle transmission between France and UK and providing a quantitative assessment of their inter-dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A crime epidemic appears to have erupted in many advanced economies, raising questions on whether higher unemployment leads to greater incidence of crime. In this paper, we establish a robust connection between unemployment and crime, considering both violent and non-violent crimes, in a 4 variable time-varying VAR setting in identifying four shocks: unemployment, output, migration fear, and crime shocks. Using data from France and the UK over the time period 1975Q1 to 2013Q4 and 1983Q1 to 2018Q2 respectively, we find significant positive effects of unemployment shocks on crime rates in both countries, particularly so during the times of economic contraction. We also find that crime rates decline during times of economic expansion (in response to a positive shock in GDP growth). Considering shocks in migration fears, we find that migration fears are fuelling higher incidence of crime in France, whereas unemployment shock continues to drive crime rates in the UK. Undertaking further analysis for a single country at quarterly frequency for the UK, and with panel data from 24 countries at annual frequency over the period 1998 to 2016, we support our main hypothesis that higher unemployment rate tends to increase non-violent crime. Our results imply that maintaining stable economic activity is critical in order to stabilize incidence of non-violent crime. These findings have political significance, given the recent unprecedented levels of concern and uncertainty about migration in European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]